Game Within the Game
by Sharper Than the Sword
Summary: Let me explain further, then, for those of you who are not the Doctor. I am sure he has figured it out already. The object of the game we are playing is to obtain the name of your opponent. The Doctor, his daughter, Torchwood, and a mysterious enemy.
1. Chapter 1

1

Friendly Visits Are Just Too Boring

_Among the many mythologies, legends, and tales that populate the Universe and its billions of civilizations, there is one particular figure that recurs throughout time and history: the Doctor. There are countless stories from countless cultures, across all three galaxies of the Human Empire, that tell of a man known only as 'the Doctor' who descends from the sky and passes judgment on the wicked, and protects the innocent and helpless. _

_Perhaps the most curious aspect of this tale is not that it reappears so often throughout otherwise distant and unconnected civilizations, but that tales of the man called the Doctor appear throughout the ages, as well. Stories concerning this mysterious figure range as far back as the Blessed Scriptures of the Prophet Zarquon and up to as recently as the uprising at the Oodsphere two years ago. In fact, almost every scholar on the subject acknowledges the distinct possibility that the Doctor is alive right now, and is currently spreading his legend further throughout this vast universe…_

_- Professor Zandax !Banau, _'Doctor Who? The Man, the Legend, and the Reality,' _Copyright 4128 EC, Clom Galactic Publishers._

_All excerpts are used here courtesy of The Library._

* * *

The Doctor and his daughter stood opposite each other in the dojo.

Well, he called the room his 'dojo,' and it was indeed decked out just like one, but in reality it was just another room in the TARDIS, ready to become any other at a moment's notice.

Jenny and her father were both clad in the simple brown robes of the warrior monks of the planet Lothar, who practiced one of the Doctor's favourite martial arts (It specialized in nonlethal attack and utilized quite a bit of running).

"Right then, Jenny, you ready?"

She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet. "Yep."

The Doctor smirked and then ran straight at her. She lowered her stance, but he kept right on running, zipping past her.

She turned, and he was in front of her again, keeping her confused by sprinting around in a circle. By adopting a conventional fighter's stance, she had sacrificed mobility for the sake of stability. She spun around again, but the circle had become a spiral and he caught her off-balance.

"Come on! You're thinking like a soldier! I told you to stop that."

She lay on her back where she had fallen, staring at the ceiling. "Well, what am I supposed to be thinking like?"

"A warrior monk! Devoted to the ways of philosophy and peace, the monks of Lothar become poetry in motion, fighting with a style that is graceful, quick, and artistic. Stop being efficient."

Jenny arched her back, bringing her legs around in a spinning kick. The momentum carried her to her feet, and she used that speed to launch herself into a sprint right at her father.

He ducked underneath her strike and his foot struck the square of her back, knocking her on her face this time.

"Wipe that stupid smirk off your face."

It widened instead. "No."

She launched herself at him, but this time caught his strike with hers and flipped over him, landing behind so that they were back-to-back. Briefly. The weight beneath her shoulder disappeared as her father dropped to the ground and rolled so that he was in front of her.

Of course, she had leaned forward to compensate for the sudden lack of support, so that this time she was leaning into his strike.

It hurt.

"Screw this warrior-monk stuff." She heaved herself to her feet, again. "What's the point? I already know twenty other fighting techniques."

The Doctor tossed her a bottle of water. "Because you will be traveling. A lot. And what happens of you meet someone who knows something that you don't?"

She sighed. Lessons again. "I'm at a disadvantage."

"Exactly. So it's really in your best interests to learn everything about everything."

Somewhere, deep within the ancient, living machine, the phone rang.

The two of them paused. The Doctor opened his mouth, as if to say something.

"Dad… there's a… is that a telephone?"

The blond girl stood there for a moment, her words echoing briefly. And then a fluttering brown something bounded past her.

At least, that was what it looked like. The tall, slight man bolted into the hallway, vaulted over a railing and landed one floor below, sprinting off further into the depths of the vessel. With a sigh, Jenny jogged after him.

"Where…did…I…put…Aha!" The man thrust his fist in the air triumphantly, the fist now clutching a cell phone that had just been wrenched out from between a box of screwdrivers (every possible model- from stone to sonic) and the head of a Cyberman.

He put it to his ear. "Hello, again." The grin on his face remains plastered there throughout the entire conversation, even if it does fade slightly once or twice. "Yup. Yup. Oh, I remember him. Really? Can't handle it yourself? Kidding, kidding! Right. Right then. Tell Jack not to shoot or shag any of them. No. No means no. Right, then." The grin widens. "See you soon, Martha."

Jenny raised an eyebrow. "Martha?"

Her father smiled. "Martha."

"Martha Jones?"

"Yes Martha Jones."

She crosses her arms. "So what does that mean?"

He runs his hand through his elaborately casual hairstyle. "What does it mean?" The two of them journey through the TARDIS' vast interior, up and up, until they come to the control panel at the craft's entrance. "It means that we're going to Earth, Jenny."

The Doctor slams a lever, mostly for show, and then dashes about the console inputting a set of familiar coordinates into the machine that is almost as old as he is.

* * *

"Oh my God."

"What?" The Doctor looked at the gaping Martha Jones, and then at Jenny standing beside him. "Oh, her?"

"I thought you were dead!" Martha put her hands on Jenny's shoulder's hesitantly, as if unsure that she is real. "I saw you die."

She shrugs. "I got better."

"But… how?"

The Doctor sighed loudly. "Ah, really sort of complicated. I can give you a scientific explanation, if you like."

Martha looked up at him pleadingly. "Am I going to understand it?"

"Not a chance. Sorry."

She and Jenny exchanged knowing glances, before Jenny offered a simple explanation. "Remember that sphere thingy?"

"Oh, right, the life-sphere thingy."

"Well the concentrated life-sphere energy from the life-sphere thingy apparently activated the dormant Time Lord DNA that had been made dormant by the human cloning process, and it allowed me to regenerate."

"But… you still look the same."

"Aha!" The Doctor shouted. "An impasse! Allow me to explain-"

"Well," Jenny continued, ignoring him, "The life-sphere thingy apparently had a lot of life-sphere energy that was single-handedly life-spherisizing-"

The Doctor yelped in genuine physical pain at this. It is a recessive genetic trait among Time Lords that select individuals cannot physically stand to hear someone bastardizing a scientific explanation.

"Ahem. Life-spherisizing the entire planet. So the sudden upswing in energy was enough to spark the regeneration process, and the excess energy from the process was siphoned off by the planet itself."

Martha turned to the Doctor. "That actually made sense. I actually understood that. I think that I like her more than I like you." She smiled, and hugged both of the Time Lords warmly. "What was your explanation, anyways?"

The Doctor sighed. "I was going to say something about reversing polarities." It was an equally rare condition among Time Lords that they were compelled to falsify scientific explanations with relentless technobabble. The Doctor, suffering from both conditions, was constantly tearing himself up inside.

"So, then," Jenny said, "I'm guessing that we're just not here for a friendly visit."

"It's never a friendly visit, is it?" Martha laughed. "Friendly visits are just too boring."

"Well, they are," the Doctor said defensively.

"Nevermind." Martha turned from the center of Roald Dahl Plass, where the TARDIS was parked, and beckoned for them to follow. "Let's get into Torchwood Three, and Jack will explain. And Mickey's there, too- do you remember? He joined up with us after- well, you know."

They followed her to the invisible elevator that was the entrance to the Cardiff branch of Torchwood. The head branch, now.

"Hey, cool," Jenny remarked upon observing how the device worked. The three of them descended into the cool underground, where they were greeted by an old friend.

"Well, hello! Who are you?" A handsome, energetic man bounded forward at the sight of the Doctor, but almost immediately turned to greet Jenny instead.

"Call me Jenny," she smiled.

He shook her hand delicately, and his eyes widened. "Quite the grip you have there."

She shrugged. "Well, I'm not exactly human."

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Interesting. What are you, then, if not human?"

Jenny smiled again. "I'm a Time Lord."

Jack Harkness promptly did the mother of all double-takes, and stepped back to look at the Doctor. "Very interesting. Care to explain, Doctor?"

He gritted his teeth, knowing the reaction that would inevitably accompany his explanation. "She's my daughter."

"Okay. Even more interesting- I need details."

"She's a clone from- well, half clone DNA projection of- an extrapolation based upon biological- Martha, just explain it to him later."

The four of them looked back and forth at each other, and Jack sighed. "Right. A clone. Not as interesting as I had hoped."

"Can we get past this?"

"Fine."

Mickey Smith- the newest member of Torchwood Three- entered the room and caught sight of the Doctor. "Oi! They told me you'd be dropping by. Who's the assistant?"

"Who's the assistant? Rickey-"

"Mickey."

"Mickey. How polite is that, to just ask, 'who's the assistant?'"

"How polite is it to forget my name?"

"That's beside the point."

Mickey turned to Jenny. "Hello. Mickey Smith. Pleased to meet you."

Jenny smiled back. "Hi, Mickey. Jenny. I'm the Doctor's daughter."

Mickey wheeled about. "What!? Your daughter?"

"Oh, here we go again." The Doctor waved his hand dismissively. "Martha will, I'm sure, give all of you a nice proper explanation at some point, but the short version of it is that Jenny is a clone. Happy now?"

Jack and Mickey nodded.

"Good!" He turned to Jack. "Where's the rest of the Torchwood team?"

"You mean Gwen and Ianto? Well, they're in London- off dealing with the problem that Martha called you about. Not that they can do much- they're saying that you're the only person they'll negotiate with."

The Doctor stroked his chin thoughtfully. Or at least, he tried to. He'd shaved that morning- there wasn't enough stubble there yet for a good thoughtful chin-stroke. Shame. "First I need you to… ah, brief me on the situation. That the right word? Brief… yeah, it is."

"Yeah," Jenny said, "What did you call him about? And who are they?"

Jack beckoned them deeper into the underground complex. "The aliens of London."

The group followed him through Torchwood three, until they came to a room with several comfortable chairs. Sitting, Jack continued. "As I'm sure most of you are aware, there are actually a good deal of aliens living on Earth. Now, long ago, there was a strict set of rules established for these aliens. That was you."

Jack pointed at the Doctor, who did a mock bow. "I tried to be very reasonable. How do they go?"

"One," said Jack, "They must live within a hundred kilometres of a government-sanctioned extraterrestrial control organization. For example, us, and UNIT. Two, they must never reveal to humans that they are, in fact, aliens. And three, they may never kill or harm a human."

"With some exceptions to all three," The Doctor noted. "Say… the provision that an alien may harm a human or reveal their identity in self-defence, or some of the aliens that require a human host body may take one."

"You know," Mickey said, "I'm not exceptionally happy about that. Why are we letting some of these aliens kill innocent people?"

"Because they need to in order to survive." The Doctor knew that Mickey would never understand, not really- every species innately believed that their survival came before all else. "If they wanted, it's likely that they could take Earth for themselves, anyways. The only reason that they agree to live by the rules I've imposed upon them is because they know I could single-handedly throw them all out if I wanted."

"So you saved the world through peaceful negotiation? That's a change." Jenny smirked.

"Well, it was bound to work sometime."

"But," Jack went on, "A few weeks ago, they suddenly decided that they didn't need to worry about your set of rules anymore. There's been a dramatic upswing in the amounts of alien-related violence lately, and quite a few murdered humans."

"What's more," Martha chimed in, "they're not even being subtle about it. It's right up front, to the point where the citizens are becoming suspicious. And, they're threatening to reveal themselves to the public at large."

"Unless?"

Martha looked him right in the eye. "Unless you renegotiate their terms personally. We tried to contain the situation for a few weeks, but eventually things got out of control."

The Doctor was silent for a while. Then, he turned to Jack. "It can't be all of the aliens behind this. Some of them are far too peaceful for this, and others respect the humans too much."

Jack began shuffling through a bundle of papers on one of the desks. He pulled a plain filing folder out of the pile, and handed it to the Doctor. "No. Mostly it's the same ones it's always been, but they're acting on it instead of just complaining this time around. As far as we can tell, the ringleaders are that family of Malsangurians. The vampires."

The Doctor pulled a picture of a middle-aged man and woman out of the folder. Asiman and Lilith. The patriarch and matriarch of the vampire tribe inhabiting London. "Well," he said, standing up, "There's only one thing for it. We go to London and I'll try to talk things out with them."

"Think it'll work this time?" Jack asked.

"No." There was only one real reason why the aliens would disobey his orders.

"Here's what I don't get," Mickey said, as the five of them left Torchwood Three in the invisible elevator. "You told us that they were afraid of you, and that's the only reason that they'll obey your terms. So why aren't they, all of a sudden?"

It was Jenny who answered him, having figured it out a short while after the Doctor did.

"Because," she said, "they've found someone who they think can outsmart the Doctor."


	2. Chapter 2

I have a bunch of chapters for this story already written, but I'm going to space them out a bit while I get the others done. However, I'll put up two or three right away so that I can get the story going and people reading, and then I'll update periodically. Thanks in advance to everybody who reads and reviews- knowing that people are following this makes me all the more happy to share it.

Also, this is my first work on this site, so I've been having some trouble with the chapter submission system. Getting this one up has been absolute agony.

* * *

2

The Stakes of This Game Shall be Measured in Lives

"_Not easy, is it? Being clever. You look at the world and you connect things, random things, and think- why can't anyone else see it? The rest of the world is so slow. You're on your own."_

_- The Doctor_

* * *

"Vampires? Like in the movies?'

"First off, they don't really like the term 'vampire.' It's considered a racist slur. Super ignorant. Don't drop it." Jenny and the Doctor strolled along the London street, passing restaurants and shops filled with humans. "They prefer 'Malsangurians.' And it's not entirely accurate to say that they are 'just like in the movies,' Jenny- after all, they were here first. The Malsangurian lifespan measures in the millennia."

"Just like in the movies," Jenny noted, smirking.

He gave up. "Okay, yes, fine. They are just like in the movies."

Asiman and Lilith, the two leaders of both the alien revolt movement and the clan of vampires, had sent Gwen and Ianto back to Torchwood with demands that the Doctor meet with them for negotiations. As a show of good faith, they had agreed to a meeting outside during the daytime, and allowed the Doctor to bring one of his companions with him. Naturally, he had chosen Jenny.

"Now, Jenny," he said, "a quick lesson on Malsangurian biology. The alien is, in fact, a psychic energy capable of inhabiting the body of any sentient host. Their lifespan within the host body is as long as the host's natural lifespan, and when that body dies they must move to a new host or die themselves."

Jenny nodded. "I assume that's where the belief that vampires create more vampires originates?"

"Correct. Well done, incidentally." Although Jenny might be young, she was still a Time Lord, and as such was remarkably perceptive. "The Malsangurians are a race based heavily in psychic energy. Once they inhabit a host body, they hunt other victims of the same species and drink their blood."

He stopped then, letting Jenny figure it out. Where his travels with human companions had been adventures, his travels with his daughter were lessons. He always let her make the connections, let her unravel the working of the Universe on her own. He quite enjoyed it, seeing his daughter develop as a Time Lord.

Now her eyes lit up with the familiar glow of deduction. "I get it! They don't drink the blood for its physical properties- they drink it because of its _symbolism_. Blood is deeply symbolic in almost every culture in the universe, and it is layered with physical and mental connections to the mind. They feed off of the psychic lifeforce of their victims." She looked up at him. "Right?"

"Correctamundo." He had promised himself he would never say that again. "They kill the victim by draining their mind, in addition to their arteries."

"But what about the other stuff? The aversion to sunlight and religious artifacts, the inability to enter homes without invitation… the obsession with counting?"

"Well, that's all mental association. Think about it- because humans feel safe in the daylight, or with their faith, or in their homes, they are. I don't know about any counting obsession, though.

"Nevermind." She smiled.

"The sunlight aversion is biological, too. The Malsangurian inhabiting someone prompts changes in the host's biology- increased physical strength, and speed. Predator's aspects. Including…"

"Augmented eyesight!" Jenny nodded. "The brightness of the sun must disturb them. I bet that Malsangur is far from its sun."

"That's right. It's the tenth planet away." The Doctor stopped, and pointed across the street. "There's the place."

Across the street was a small privately owned restaurant, the _Talking Dog_. The Doctor knew that the restaurant's owner, a canine alien from the next galaxy over, found this very funny.

He scanned the diners eating in the outdoor patio, and quickly spotted Lilith, who was currently a middle-aged woman who had gone prematurely gray. Asiman, however, was not with her.

"Where…" he began, but then a young man emerged from inside the restaurant and sat down next to her. He was golden-haired and tall, dressed expensively to match Lilith. He leaned over and spoke a few words into the matriarch's ear, and she looked directly across the street, at the Doctor and Jenny.

"He didn't!" The Doctor was immediately overcome with the unique brand of anger that comes with the death of innocents. Heedless of the traffic, he stormed across the road, glaring at the new face of Asiman.

A car skidded noisily to a halt, narrowly avoiding colliding with him. "You stupid git! What the hell are you doing?!" The driver stepped out of his car, and the Doctor paused a moment to shoot him the same look he had been giving Asiman. The man caught sight of him, paled, and then meekly climbed back into his vehicle.

Jenny darted after him. "What? What is it?"

He reached the table the two aliens were sitting at. Asiman looked up at him and smiled merrily. "Hello, Doctor. It's been so long that we were afraid you'd changed your face again. Glad that we could recognize you."

The Doctor fumed. "Well, I almost didn't recognize you."

Asiman looked down at himself with the air of someone appreciating fine clothing. The fact that he was wearing an expensive dinner jacket had nothing to do with it, however. "You like it? It took me quite a while to decide. Although, I can always change again…"

"The agreement was that you could change hosts once the lifespan of the previous host had ended!" People at nearby tables started to turn. He glanced sheepishly around, and then concentrated, projecting his thoughts. _You don't notice us. Nothing to see. Somebody Else's Problem._

The people turned away, chattering as if nothing happened.

The Doctor sat down and leaned across the table, still furious. "You call me here for negotiations, and I arrive to find out that you've already killed innocent people?"

Asiman sighed. "Doctor, why don't you introduce us to your lovely new companion."

"Hm? Oh, this is Jenny. Jenny, this is Asiman and Lilith, the patriarch and matriarch of the Malsangurian clan on Earth." They had decided beforehand to keep Jenny's identity as his daughter a secret.

Jenny nodded and shook both of their hands, but her expression remained cold.

"How did you meet the Doctor, Jenny?" Lilith asked.

"I'm a friend of Martha Jones."

Lilith picked up a glass of ice water on the table, and offered it to the Doctor. "Shall we begin, then?"

The Doctor looked the two of them in the eyes. At the same time. Time Lords can do that. "Very well."

He reached into one of his coat's many pockets and withdrew a Swiss Army knife. Using it, he made a small cut on the tip of his index finger and held it over the glass of water in Lilith's hand.

A single drop of the Doctor's blood fell into the glass. An ancient ritual of Malsangur, intended as a gesture of friendship and a show of faith.

The ever-present regeneration energy surged forth, healing the cut instantly. A neat trick, but only possible for minor cuts and bruises- anything serious required enough energy to spark a full-fledged regeneration.

Lilith watched as the drop of blood swirled and dispersed itself throughout the water. She raised the glass to her lips and drank, her eyes closed in a unique sort of ecstasy. The she smiled. "Ahh… The blood of one so ancient, so wise, and so powerful… What are you, really, Doctor?"

"Just one intelligent life form in an unintelligent universe."

Asiman's laughter was sympathetic. "Is that so? I won't deny that you're far beyond Lilith and I." He, too, drank the water mixed with the Doctor's blood, relishing the alien taste. "Your blood is the only blood of your species I have ever tasted. It is exquisite."

"Glad to hear it." He meshed his fingers together and rested his forehead against them for a moment before continuing. "What's this I hear about you heading an antihuman terrorist group?"

Asiman shrugged. "The aliens of Earth have decided that the conditions imposed upon us are unreasonable. If we wanted to, we could take this planet for ourselves, but instead we live in obscurity, hiding our true selves, out of fear. Fear of you."

"The only reason we agreed to your conditions is because you threatened us."

Jenny turned to the Doctor and said sharply, "You threatened them?"

"Did not!" He insisted.

Lilith snorted. "Maybe it wasn't explicit, but it certainly was implied. What were your words, again?"

"I believe he said, 'You had better remember those rules, because I'll be here. And I'll be watching. And if you even _think_ of harming the people of Earth, I will show you just why I am called 'the Oncoming Storm,'" Asiman supplied helpfully. "If that's not an implied threat, I don't know what is."

The Doctor felt that the real issue was getting lost in all this. "It doesn't matter whether you were threatened or not. What matters is that you've murdered an innocent human being, just so you can look young!"

"Maybe two," Lilith said. "I'm actually sort of shopping for one right at the moment."

Jenny was appalled. "You would do that? Kill someone, just for the sake of it?"

Asiman shook his head. "Never. We do it simply to survive- That's what my species is. Predators. Do we not have the right to our prey?"

The Doctor frowned. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because we want what is rightfully ours, Doctor. Because I am tired of living a second-rate life, just because I'm not human. Because-"

"No, no, no, no. That's not what I meant," the Doctor interrupted. "You've lived by these rules for centuries. You've always listened to me. And now, suddenly, you directly defy me and kill- an act of outright hostility." He stared right into the Malsangurian's eyes, but they betrayed no hint of emotion. "Who's pulling the strings, Asiman?"

The two were very silent for a long time. And then, a cell phone rang. Lilith reached into her purse and picked it up. "Hello," she said, smiling. Then she handed the phone over to the Doctor. "It's for you."

Hesitantly, the Doctor took the phone from Lilith's hand and put it to his ear. "Who is this?"

The voice on the end was male, jovial and at the same time coldly calculative. "Either a potential friend, Doctor, or a deadly enemy."

"Cut the melodrama. Who are you?"

An electronic sigh. "An opponent."

"Opponent?" The word must have been carefully chosen: the voice on the other end was playing a game.

"Uh-huh. That's what you do, isn't it? Play games with people's lives?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he seethed for a bit.

"Of course you do. Why do you do all of this, this…swashbuckling adventuring action hero genius nonsense, after all? Because it's _fun_. Tell me something, though- has it been fun for you lately?"

The Doctor wondered briefly how to deal with this man on the other end of the phone, who the vampires believed to be a match for him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say. And I say what I mean." The man giggled.

He looked at Jenny, who was watching him pointedly. "Yes, then."

"Mmmhm? Well, I haven't been enjoying myself of late, you see. Far too boring. So I thought that I would find myself a worthy opponent, and have myself a good old-fashioned battle of wits."

"You found me. Am I a worthy opponent, then?"

He could almost hear the grin. "The only one, I think. So shall we begin playing?"

"Look, is that all this is to you, just a game? People have died. You can't play around with lives." The Doctor stood, with a sudden nasty feeling that he was being watched. Quickly surveying the immediate area, he saw no less than twelve men talking on cell phones.

"Can't I? That is an idea, though, Doctor. The stakes of this game shall be measured in lives."

Was he here? Was he watching? "Stop this. What do you want?"

"A challenge. A good time. Something to while away the boredom. That's all. Shall we play? If not, then that means you forfeit the lives of every human on Earth."

So he had no choice, then. But even if he had, would he really have said no? "Fine, then. What's the game?"

"Well, that's the first part. You have to figure out what game we're playing. Lilith should be able to help you with that." The man on the other end was quiet, and the Doctor wondered if he had hung up. And then, "Incidentally, Doctor, I am not one of the men who you see speaking on a cell phone. But I am watching you right now."

He ended the call and slammed the phone down on the table, scanning the crowd of people nearby. London was packed in the afternoon, the summer heat luring people outdoors.

There was an old man sitting alone at a table, and two more playing a game of chess. A dark-haired man and a woman sat at another table, talking to each other in low voices. Across the street, a group of teenagers in football jerseys chattered loudly, while another in a sweater emerged from a shop eating a sandwich. Two police officers patrolled the sidewalk, and construction workers avoided working in the street. The waiters zipped between tables- two men in suits appeared to be negotiating a business deal- a man with long hair looked idly out of the window at the street below- a family exited the restaurant- a man crossed the street- another teenager went into the sandwich shop- two more left- another old man- a fat man- a child-

A child?

He could be anybody. But if he indeed was a 'worthy opponent,' for the Doctor, he would not be found out so easily.

Jenny prodded his shoulder. "What is it? What's going on?"

The Doctor cursed in his own language. It had been such a long time since he had said anything but swear words in that tongue. "He's here."

"Who? Who's here?"

Asiman laughed softly. "He is indeed. I can see him right now."

The Doctor whirled around to face the two of them "Listen. Whoever he is, he's not doing this for you. You'll die if you get caught up in this, and trust me, I don't want that. Just ignore him, and we can renegotiate the terms on our own, and we all get out of this okay. Okay?"

"He can beat you, you know."

"What?"

"He can beat you," Lilith repeated, "And all we have to do is be on the same side as him when he does. He doesn't care about our lives, no- but he doesn't care about the humans' either, and if we help him he will reward us."

"Who is 'he?'" Jenny asked.

Asiman shrugged again. "I don't know. But I've tasted his blood, as well, Doctor- and there is a power there that I can't taste in yours."

The Doctor stood again. "I've had enough of this blood talk, it's creeping me out. I'm leaving. When you're willing to negotiate instead of intimidate, get back to me."

As he and Jenny made to leave, Lilith reached into her purse. 'Hang on a second, Doctor. I've got something for you."

It was a small box, gift-wrapped and with a bright red bow on top. "What is it?"

"I don't know," she said, "But he instructs me to tell you that it is his 'first move.'"

First move. The game they were supposed to be playing. Of course.

"What the hell is going on?" Jenny hissed at him, unhappy at being left out of the loop.

"I'll tell you later," the Doctor reassured her, "For now, let's just get back to Torchwood."

A waitress with vibrant red hair made her way to the Malsangurian's table. "Have you decided what you will be having today?" she asked the two aliens who looked like an old woman and a young man.

Lilith looked her over appraisingly, and then appeared to come to a decision. "Yes," she said, "I have."


	3. Chapter 3

Some good old-fashioned deducing in this chapter. One thing I always liked about _Doctor Who _was how some of the most exciting scenes could be the conversations, and watching the characters work things out piece-by-piece. The feel of those scenes is pretty much what I'm trying to emulate in this chapter.

Also, now that I've got the plot going, I'll scale back new chapters to maybe one a week. Not going to give a definite schedule 'cause I can't keep one.

* * *

3

What We Need Are Some Adjectives

_PRIEST: So you play chess with Death?_

_ANTONIUS: He is a skilful tactician. But I have not yet lost one piece._

_PRIEST: How can you outwit Death?_

_ANTONIUS: By a combination of bishop and knight. I will break his flank._

_(The Priest turns and reveals to Antonius that he is Death in disguise.)_

_DEATH: I shall remember that._

_ANTONIUS: Traitor! You have tricked me!_

_- Ingmar Bergman, 'The Seventh Seal'_

* * *

Torchwood's London headquarters had been relocated.

To a hotel room.

After the incident at One Canada Square, the organization had been downsized, and control transferred to Torchwood Three in Cardiff. From there, the team had traveled to whatever incidents arose, which usually meant trips of less than a few days. However, the current standoff with the aliens of London had been ongoing for weeks already, and so a temporary headquarters had been established in a penthouse suite.

Gwen Cooper, Mickey Smith, and Jack Harkness were at headquarters when Jenny and the Doctor returned. He stepped forward and slammed the box Lilith had given him down onto the table.

Gwen was the first to speak, after all three of them looked hesitantly at the gift-wrapped box. "What's that?"

"You tell me," the Doctor said, angrily helping himself from the minibar.

"What happened?" Jack asked.

Jenny sat down heavily. Her father had told her the details of his phone conversation with their mysterious antagonist on the way back to the hotel, and had refused to open the mysterious package until he could have Torchwood take a look at it. She relayed the events of the alien negotiations to Jack, Gwen, and Mickey.

"So… do you have any idea who it is?" Mickey picked up the parcel and looked it over. It was wrapped in brightly coloured paper decorated with designs of balloons and the words 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' over and over. "Someone you've met before?"

The Doctor thought briefly, and then decided that two ice cubes would be the ideal balance between keeping the drink cold and watering it down. Then he answered Mickey's question. "I can think of plenty of people I've met before who would play games like this. Trouble is, all of them are dead."

Jack took the package from Mickey, turning it over in his hands, and looked pointedly at the doctor. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure," he said flatly.

Jenny asked suddenly, "why don't you open it?"

"Because I don't know what's inside."

"Well, yeah. That's exactly why you should open it."

"Wouldn't be anything dangerous, would it?" Gwen mused, "He doesn't spound like he's out to kill."

Jack handed the box to the Doctor, and he shook it, feeling something rattling around inside. _His first move… the game… stakes measured in lives…_

He tore off the paper to reveal a nondescript cardboard box. He took the lid off the box to reveal-

Jenny and Jack both recognized it. Mickey and Gwen did not.

The Doctor took the data stick out of the box and examined it. It looked like a small cylinder, made of glass, about five centimetres long, and maybe half a centimetre wide. He knew that, within the seemingly nondescript glass, there were layers upon layers of coded information ready to be decoded and displayed by any standard hologram projector.

"His first move," the Doctor muttered.

"Uh… what's that?" Mickey asked.

"It's a data stick," said Jack. "Standard format for electronic information by the thirty-first century. Time was- Time _will_ be that everybody watches their movies and plays their computer games with those things." He looked off into the distance nostalgically. "Takes me back. Or, I guess, takes me forward. I haven't even really been born yet. Well, I have, but-"

"Jack."

"Sorry."

"But wait," Gwen said, "if it's from the thirty-first century, what's it doing here? Maybe it's a clue- he can time travel!"

"No." The Doctor tossed the stick into the air and caught it. "The data stick format for storing information was actually invented in 1785, next galaxy over. It's a niche product right now because of its cost. Didn't really win the format war until the 3040s."

"But it still is a clue," Jenny remarked. "It tells us that our buddy there's an alien, or at least has knowledge of obscure alien high-definition technology."

Mickey put up his hand tentatively. "This is going to sound stupid, but… can't we just see what's on it? With a data-stick-reader, or something?"

The Doctor leapt to his feet. "The logical next move! Well, allons-y, then!" He sprinted out of the room. Jenny gave a weak shrug to the other three, and then went after him. Jack mirrored Jenny's shrug, and then ran after her. Gwen looked at Mickey, and then followed Jack. Mickey, finding that he was now in an empty room, followed her.

* * *

The TARDIS, which was currently parked in an alleyway two blocks down from the hotel, had a projection room. Inside of this room, there was every sort of projector that had ever been invented, capable of projecting every sort of projection that had been ever invented.

The Doctor bounded into the room and slid the data stick into the hologram projector. After a few moments, the machine read the data on the stick, and the room was suddenly filled with planets.

The other four entered the room to find the Doctor laughing.

"What?" Jenny said. "What is it?" She noticed that her father's laughter didn't quite extend to his eyes- the sadness that was almost always there seemed more prominent now.

He pointed. "Look at what he's done. Look. Read the name of that planet, there, for me."

Jack strode to the reddish-orange projection the Doctor had pointed out. Underneath it, a single word floated in midair. "Gallifrey."

Jenny paled.

"Sounds Irish," said Mickey.

"Doctor, what does this-"

He interrupted Jack again by pointing to another planet, deeper red than the last. "And that one? What is that one?"

"Skaro," Jack read. He was silent now.

"And that one?"

"Traken."

The Doctor pointed at each of the planets in turn, and Jack read out each of the names as he did so. "Logopolis… Krop Tor… Malcassario…"

"And who can tell me," the Doctor asked, "What they all have in common?"

Jenny looked around the room at the ghostly images. "They've all been destroyed…"

The Doctor smiled sadly. "They've all been destroyed by me. To some degree or another, I was involved."

Gwen passed her hand through the projection of Gallifrey. The light refracted and bent around her arm as she did so. "So what is this? Some ploy to make you feel guilty?"

"Not quite." He pointed to one last planet in the corner of the room, a blue-green marble. The name underneath this one was 'Earth.'

"So it's a threat?" Jenny couldn't figure this out. What was the purpose of this, as his 'first move?'

"Maybe it is. But only an incidental one. And that's because this…" The Doctor fiddled with the hologram projector, and a series of ghostly figures appeared in two groups off to the side. "Is a board game!"

The two groups of figures that had appeared were red and blue, and arranged similar to those of a chess board. Jenny recognized an assortment of humanoid figures alongside Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen, and other aliens.

"These are custom pieces and planets for a game of Ri. Isn't that brilliant?"

Jenny wondered how her father could possibly be so elated at the innovation of someone who was more than likely trying to kill them.

"Look what he's done. The Time Lord piece is- actually- a Time Lord! It's me!" One of the red holograms was a near-exact representation of the Doctor. Its equivalent among the blue holograms, however, was- "A question mark. Hm. Well, that's not very subtle, is it?"

Mickey prodded one of the shining planets hesitantly. "So what is… Ri? Is it, like, alien chess or something?"

The Doctor looked up in surprise. "That's exactly right, Mickey. It's an old, old strategy game where a set of game pieces representing an army try to conquer a set of spaces representing planets. Nobody actually knows what civilization it's from, or when it originated." He paused thoughtfully. "Jenny, remind me to go and find out sometime."

"So when he said that this was his first move in the game you were playing," Jack said, "He literally meant that this was his first move in the game."

"Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that."

The Doctor continued to press buttons on the console, and suddenly an absurdly cheerful and catchy tune sounded- an original composition, no doubt. Words appeared, suspended in midair, and the four of them read the message silently.

HELLO, DOCTOR AND PALS!

I'M QUITE AWARE THAT I'VE ANNOUNCED THIS AS MY FIRST MOVE IN OUR GAME, BUT I'M AFRAID FURTHER CLARIFICATION IS NEEDED. YOU SEE, MY FIRST MOVE IS THE COMMENCEMENT OF A GAME WITHIN THE GAME- WHERIN I HAVE PROVIDED YOU WITH MY FIRST THREE MOVES. I HAVE ALSO MADE SOME ALTERATIONS TO THE CLASSIC GAME OF RI, SOME OF WHICH I AM SURE YOU HAVE NOTICED ALREADY. I HAVE REPLACED THE CLASSIC PIECES AND PLANETS WITH SOME OF MY OWN CHOOSING, WHICH I AM SURE ARE QUITE FAMILIAR TO YOU.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE TIME LORD PIECES ON EACH SIDE HAVE BEEN REPLACED WITH REPRESENTATIONS OF YOU AND I- IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT ONE OF US IS INDEED A TIME LORD! MY OWN HOLOGRAPHIC SELF, HOWEVER, IS HIDDEN WITHIN THE PROGRAMMING OF THE DATA STICK I HAVE GIVEN YOU. WIN THE GAME WITHIN THE GAME, AND YOU WIN THE GAME!

SIMPLE, NO?

LET ME EXPLAIN FURTHER, THEN, FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE NOT THE DOCTOR. I AM SURE HE HAS FIGURED IT OUT ALREADY. THE OBJECT OF THE GAME WE ARE PLAYING IS TO OBTAIN THE NAME OF YOUR OPPONENT.

SIMPLE, NO?

WELL, THAT IS ALL FOR NOW. WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LET US BEGIN! SEE ALL YOU GUYS LATER!

The words shimmered, and then blinked out of existence. None of them said anything, and the Doctor reached down and tapped a set of buttons on the hologram projector. His red holographic self moved from the assortment of pieces on the side of the display to the representation of Earth.

There was a pause, and then the blue question mark moved to hover over Gallifrey.

"First three moves…" Jenny mused. "His first plays in the Ri game are preprogrammed."

"What's more, they're a message to me," The Doctor said. "Look. All of these planets have been destroyed, with the exception of one- Earth. The first move in the game of Ri is to place your Time Lord piece. I chose Earth, thinking that maybe it plays some special role. Knowing that I would have done that, he programmed his first move to be Gallifrey."

"It's a direct taunt."

"Right, Jack." The Doctor made his next move, and a red Dalek moved to one of the planets beside Earth. "So if I take the reasonable move of fortifying my defenses, then he will-" A blue Dalek was placed two planets away from Earth. The Doctor laughed. "Make an aggressive move designed to limit my mobility. He's predicting what I would do- but then again, it's just sound strategy."

"Well," said Gwen, "What if you made a move that wasn't sound strategy? What of you did something completely unpredictable?"

"Oh, very good! I can see why Jack likes you. Care to do the honors?"

"M-me?" she stammered, "I don't know how to play."

"Exactly! Pick one of my pieces, and then pick a spot on the game board."

Gwen hesitated a moment, and then pointed to an alien she'd never seen before, with a label saying 'Ood.' The doctor selected it so that it glowed brighter than the other pieces. She pointed to a green planet, and he moved the alien there.

"That was exactly the right move, Gwen."

"It was?"

"Yep. Because it's a terrible move. Nobody who knew what they were doing would even think of it." His grin faded, however, when the blue side made its move. The second blue Dalek took up a spot next to the question mark on Gallifrey.

"He did predict it, after all." Jenny was learning how the game worked by watching her father play. The first step was to place all of the playing pieces at strategic points on the board, and when the Doctor had made a completely random move, his opponent had taken advantage of the lack of offense to fortify his own defence. "He must have known that at this point you would have figured out he had predicted your moves. That means he also figured out you would try a completely random move."

"Hm." The Doctor made his move, placing his second Dalek near the blue question mark- but not as close as he would have liked. When he was done, another message popped up.

SO OUR GAME HAS BEGUN. I AM AFRAID THAT I HAVE NO MORE PREPROGRAMMED MOVES FOR YOU, DOCTOR- BUT DON'T WORRY. I'LL BE SEEING YOU IN PERSON SOON, AND WE CAN CONTINUE OUR GAME THEN.

BYE!

Jenny watched her father carefully. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed heavily through clenched teeth- nervous habits.

"Okay," he said, "What do we know so far? We can figure this out."

We. Her father was counting on her. Did that mean he had faith in her, or that he lacked faith in himself? "Well…" Best thing was to list everything they knew and work from there. "Our opponent is male. An alien, judging by this game. And he clearly has either an inflated opinion of himself or he's a genius."

"Good, good. What else?"

"He knows you're a Time Lord," Jack joined in. "Gallifrey is one of the planets in the Ri game, and the Time Lord piece is you."

The Doctor paced the room, circling among the ghostly planets. "Good. Very good. But he knows more about me than my species- he knows me personally. Think about it. He's predicted my every move so far, and he's customized the board with elements specific to me and my travels- Especially the destroyed planets. He's trying to make me feel guilty; and it's working."

Jenny nodded "So you're saying that he's someone you met before?" That would certainly narrow down the list.

"Not necessarily. There are other ways for him to have obtained that information, especially considering that he's in league with the Malsangurians. They're a team of psychics- could have just read Jack's or Martha's minds a bit."

"Try using his own tricks against him. What's his personality like? Try and predict what he'll do next."

"Excellent, Jenny! What we need are some adjectives!" He began to list personality traits on his fingers. "Subtle. Manipulative. A bit childish. Intelligent. Calculative. Analytical. Machiavellian- ooh, that's a good one! Taste for the dramatic. Motivated by boredom, to some extent. Superiority complex- maybe. Weird sense of humour. Eager to prove himself? Not sure on that one. Intimidating, impressive and persuasive- got our vampire friends on his side. Lacks compassion. And a risk-taker."

"Yeah," Mickey said, "But all that stuff, what's it really tell us? 'Cause what I'm hearing is pretty much that this guy is a threat."

"A time-traveling threat on top of that. Look here." He pointed to the brown rocky planet called Krop Tor. "I wasn't exactly right when I said that all of these planets have been destroyed- because some of them haven't been yet. Krop Tor, for example, continues to exist until the forty-second century."

"Whoever he is, he has some sort of access to time travel technology. Or-" Jenny sighed. Things that seemed like clues were red herrings, and she had a nasty feeling that they were missing something. "They're psychics, right. They could have just gotten their information from the mind of a time traveler."

They were stymied.

"Who the hell is he?" Jack asked incredulously.

The Doctor stared at the holographic game board and thought for a long while. And despite all he knew, there was really only one answer to that question. "I don't know."

Jenny was worried. Whenever her father said that, it was a sure sign that they were in trouble.

* * *

Asiman, having finished his lunch at the _Talking Dog_, was strolling down the crowded London street. Lilith was not with him, having gone in the opposite direction to follow the waitress from the restaurant.

He was glad because of this. Lilith was notoriously choosy, often taking years to decide on a new host body. The one she had chosen was very good-looking, for a human, and he was pleased at having a complement to his new, youthful self.

He liked red hair. It reminded him of blood.

Asiman stopped to browse through a bookstore for a while. He was in no hurry- in fact, he was deliberately taking his time. He sifted through the new releases, and presently left the store, noting the looks he was getting from the young girl behind the cash. He'd chosen this body based on physical attractiveness, and they were welcome to look all they wanted. He, however, had a wife and he loved her very much, thank you.

Walking back into the unpleasant sunshine, he thought ahead, to this evening. The sex was always better when they had both assumed new forms. It was different, even refreshing.

The phone in his pocket vibrated. A text message. He checked it idly- it was from his mysterious new ally.

'You are being tailed. Martha Jones is across the street two blocks down. Ianto Jones is following Lilith.'

Proper punctuation and everything. My, he was an unusual fellow. Asiman turned, warm blue eyes scanning the streets, watering in the sunlight. No time for discomfort, though- he was focused enough that the sun wasn't an issue.

There she was. He recognized the back of her head, and elaborate black hairstyle- she was pretending to look at dresses in a store window.

Another text. 'Haha, I just noticed that they have the same last name! But they're totally unrelated. Isn't that weird!?'

He looked up again, and this time she turned slightly to look right at him. Their eyes met for an instant, and they both were aware of each other. He grinned and continued to amble along, waiting for her to catch up.

Soon enough, there was a voice behind him. "Where are you off to, Asiman?"

Without turning around, he replied. "Oh, just strolling about. Doing some shopping, maybe. How're you, Martha?"

"Fine, thanks. How'd the talk with The Doctor go?" His predator's sense heard the rustle of cloth as she reached into her pocket. Was she carrying a weapon? She didn't seem the type but, as a part of Torchwood, one never knew.

"Not very well, I'm afraid. I haven't seen him in years, and he only wanted to talk business. I just felt like saying hi, catching up. You know. He's an old friend of mine." Asiman mentally took stock of where he was- maybe a kilometre from headquarters. That's why she was following him, no doubt.

"Can't be that close of a friend, if you were ready to break his trust at a moment's notice."

"My family comes first." he said evenly. "I'm a father to an entire clan, Martha, and I place their needs over everybody else's. Aren't you the same way?"

"A bit," she admitted. "My family's needs don't include murdering people, though."

"We need to eat. We need bodies to inhabit." Asiman shrugged. "What d'you want me to do?"

The two of them passed by an alleyway, and suddenly the space in front of Martha was unoccupied.

He darted into the alley's shadows, his eyes adjusting to the slight darkness. There were footsteps behind him, and he angled his head slightly to see Martha Jones sprinting after him. "Asiman! Wait!"

He turned a corner, hoping simply to outrun her, he was more than fast enough. But as luck would have it, the lane he had run into ended in a brick wall. "Damn." Martha came up behind him and blocked him in.

"Look, Asiman, it doesn't have to be this way. Talk to the Doctor and renegotiate." She withdrew a small golden crucifix from her pocket and held it loosely in one hand.

"My family- the other aliens- they would never accept that. We can have it all, and we mean to." There was no rushing her, not with the crucifix. Her knowledge that she was safe made her so. "Sorry, Martha." He meant it.

With startling swiftness he leapt high and into the wall, angling his body so that his feet hit first. He crouched against the brick and, before gravity brought him down, pushed off again, launching himself up onto the roof.

He hadn't wanted to do it. It was way too sunny up here. He looked down into the alleyway, and Martha looked up at him.

"It's not up to me, anyways," he said. "Not anymore. It's up to your leader and ours." Asiman spotted the complex of warehouses in the distance, and leapt the gap between buildings easily.

As he streaked across the London rooftops, the cell phone buzzed again. He spared it a moment's glance.

'Have your family kill ten more over the next three days,' the message said. 'I will meet with the Doctor in person after then. Also pick up some chips.'

* * *

If you like it, review. If you don't like it... review. If you already have, thanks a lot.


	4. Chapter 4

The story takes a decidedly darker turn in this chapter, and you can expect it to ramp up in intensity all the way to the end. I am a firm believer that the best episodes of _Doctor Who_ are the ones that you have to watch from behind the couch. Consequently, if I give any of you nightmares, then I feel that I've done my job properly.

This chapter also contains several of the more important themes I've chosen to include. The most prominent recurring aspect of the story, however, is included in the title, description, and chapter titles, as well as within the story itself. Everything will come together and make perfect sense, as the show always does. Bonus points for whoever can unravel this whole mess of imagery and intrigue on their own.

* * *

4

No Greater Pleasure

_You may be a doctor. But I'm _the_ Doctor- the definite article, you might say._

_- The Doctor_

* * *

Jeremy Liddell stepped out of the pub for a smoke and never came back inside. Due to a combination of drunkenness and a particularly exciting football match, his three friends didn't notice he was gone until the half. By that time he had already been dead for twenty minutes.

Alice LaBarbera left her boyfriend after a tearful fight. On her way to her mother's, a dark something leapt from a rooftop across the street and had bolted into the dark alleyway on the other side within seconds, taking her with it. She was found lifeless in that same alley by a homeless man the next morning.

Mahmud Helou and David Macmillan were police officers on their nightly rounds. David thought he saw something moving in the shadows and when he did not reappear, 'Mud-' as he was fondly nicknamed- went to investigate. David was found sitting in the patrol car, which was parked just outside the station. Security footage revealed someone who appeared to be Mahmud driving the car into the lot, getting out, and then disappearing into the night.

Jane Snyder was murdered in her own home. She had been reading quietly in bed when there was a sudden knock at the window. She got up and pushed aside the drapes to reveal a strange, red-haired woman whose eyes seemed to go on forever. Numbly, she unbolted the latch and invited the woman in. When her husband (who had been watching the same game as the unfortunate Jeremy Liddell) went up to bed himself, he found that his wife had bled to death- but there was not a drop of blood to be found anywhere.

Natalya Vasilyev had just closed up shop for the night- she had run a small convenience store ever since her father had died four years ago. She locked the doors, turned around into the deserted street, and was eviscerated right there. This particularly gruesome incident was the subject of an extremely odd coroner's report: the injuries suffered greatly resembled those that would be inflicted during a mauling by a bear, wolf, or predatory cat. But what would something like that be doing in central London?

Andrew Trent had an unusual privilege for a murder victim: he was informed of it beforehand. The former Olympic fencer and practiced martial artist was approached in the silent street by a strange young man who offered him a sword and challenged him to a duel. Trent had suffered an almost literal 'death by a thousand cuts' as his opponent had sliced shallow lines into his flesh for almost an hour as he desperately attempted to defend himself. Finally, he had collapsed from exhaustion, whereupon his throat was summarily slit. There was almost no blood left for him to bleed.

The homeless man found twenty metres away from Trent had no name, no address, and no family. He had happened across two men fighting in the street with swords, of all things, and had watched awestruck from the shadows. When the odd man with the dark hair and darker eyes had finished off his opponent, he bent down and picked up the sword that had fallen from Trent's hands, and his black eyes had flashed upon the bum in the shadows. Tired of the sport, the thing that looked like a man simply shot him through the head.

Stacy Hargreaves heard a knock at the door and opened it to find a blond man with warm blue eyes and a redhead with steely grey ones asking to be invited inside. How could she say no to those eyes? Asiman bit into the soft flesh of her neck and drank while Lilith went upstairs to the baby's room.

A most peculiar thing happened to Stacy's one-year-old daughter Elizabeth. She was not killed so much as she was _changed._ The patriarch and matriarch of the Malsangurian tribe each partook of the infant's blood, and then gave it some of their own. The child's still-developing mind was fertile ground for the rich psychic energies afforded by this ritual, and she was flooded with a new state of being.

Asiman and Lilith gave the child the name of Elizabeth, however, out of respect for the life that they had taken. Bloodthirsty they may be, but no one could ever accuse them of lacking class.

* * *

He was sitting in one of the maroon armchairs in front of the elevator and cleaning his damned sword again when Asiman and Lilith returned. Catching sight of them, he looked up, his eyes glancing at each of them in turn. When he saw the child in her arms, his face brightened and he stood up, lithe figure unfolding.

"Oh, look at her," he crowed, "May I?"

Lilith beamed. Ancient though she may be, her children always made her feel young again. "Her name's Elizabeth." She handed the infant to him.

Unnaturally dark eyes flicked up at them. "That's an unusual name for a Malsangurian."

"It was the name of the child. Thought that it was appropriate, considering… well, I never like killing children." Asiman picked up one of the odd swords leaning against the armchair and ran his finger along its blade. It came away with a drop of blood on it. "What is this? You cut someone up with a sword?"

He rocked the child gently in his thin arms. "Thought I'd have some fun with my kills. Why?"

"A sword. A sword- come on."

He laughed softly and handed Elizabeth back to her mother. He could have passed easily for a human of twenty or twenty-five. A tangle of dark hair topped a pale brow, pointed features, and a long nose. Really, the only unnatural aspect to the appearance of the thing that looked like a man was his eyes- the irises were so dark as to be almost black.

"I will meet with the Doctor tomorrow."

"And what are you going to tell him?"

"Whatever you want me to, I suppose." He took the sword back from Asiman. "After all, aren't I doing this for the sake of alien rights?"

Asiman looked the man (for lack of a better word) right in the eyes. Blue on black. His mind was closed to the vampire- he could not sense even a flicker of intention. "You're not fooling anybody, Mr. Gabriel. Why are you really doing this?"

_What is a name, Asiman, besides a title? An emperor, a beggar, a Doctor… all of us have our own special little title that means we are what we are. Maybe that's all it is, maybe it's something more. Hm. What's in a name, indeed? If you need a 'proper name,' then, Asiman, I suppose that Gabriel will do as well as any._

He sighed. "I don't expect you to understand. In fact, I don't think that you _can_ understand- no offense. But it's something that has to be done."

Lilith cradled Elizabeth in her arms. "All we want is a better life for our family. I'm sure that's something you can understand."

"The importance of family. I understand. Better than most, I might add." He smiled brightly. "Oh, that reminds me. Athead picked up a new body earlier- took it from some cop. He told me to let you know."

"Thanks," Lilith said. "Come on, Asiman. Let's introduce Elizabeth to all of her new brothers and sisters."

As the two left the room and the enigmatic Mr. Gabriel returned to his cleaning, Asiman turned. "You say that I wouldn't understand. I say you don't give us nearly enough credit."

The dark eyes flicked towards his again. Stayed for a bit, as if appraising. And then he shrugged. "Best way I can put it is this: The Doctor is incredibly smart. And I am incredibly smart. Might sound arrogant, but that's just the way it is."

"And?"

"Well, it may sound petty, but among intellectuals, there really is no greater pleasure than in proving your point."

* * *

"Gloomy business, this."

"Right you are, Ron. I reckon that all of them's connected, somehow."

"Well, Don, that's gotta be it. Eleven murders in one night is suspicious, but lookin' at the circumstances of the death, it's a downright conspiracy."

"Nine."

"Well, they're sayin' nine only cause they ain't found the baby or Mud yet. But I'm thinkin' Mud's gotta be dead. I mean, I knew him, you knew him, and there ain't no way in a million years he'd a killed Dave. They were best friends. Partners."

"Smoke?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"So I saw you talkin' to that doctor fella who was here earlier."

"Yeah. Station sent 'im over to have a look at the bodies, check the time and cause of death. Can't say nothin' bout the time- but the cause of death was apparently blood loss."

"Can't be. You saw her, Don- it was like she'd just died. There was no blood anywhere."

"That's what the doc said, though. Told me he tried to take a blood sample, only there was no blood left in her. And the other ones are the same way, except for three of them. And those three are strange, too. One was ripped apart- like it was a wolf or something. One was cut up, something like a hundred or so times. And the bum just next to the cut up guy was shot through the head. Sounds to me like he stumbled upon somethin' he shouldn't have and was killed for it."

"It's not right, that's for sure."

"Not right."

"…Fuck. Fuckin' Dave, Don. And Mud, too…"

"They… they were good guys."

"Great guys."

"Great fuckin' guys…"

"… Bettman seems right pissed off about something."

"The detective? Yeah, he does. Who are those two guys next to him, anyway?"

"I dunno. HEY, DETECTIVE! WHO ARE THEM TWO? WHAT'S GOIN' ON!?"

"What'd he say, Ron?"

"I think it was… Torchwood."

"Well, pack up, then. We're leavin' early."

"Yeah? What's Torchwood."

"They're some sort of government investigatin' agency. I've dealt with 'em before. They show up for real suspicious stuff, like this, and take over the investigation."

"Huh. You ask me, Don, that in itself's pretty damn suspicious."

"Damn right."

"Real suspicious. Like there's somethin' they don't want us to know."

"Oh, they're comin' over here. Look out."

A tall man in a brown coat strode up to them and offered his hand. He did not look very happy. "Hello. I'm the Doctor."

"Oh, sorry," said the police officer named Ron, "We've already had a doctor up there to have a look."

"Yeah," said Don. "Cause of death was blood loss, apparently. Guess you're job's done already then, eh?"

The tall man blinked confusedly for a moment. "Oh! Oh, no… not that sort of doctor. I'm an… um… different… doctor. A… pseudo-extraordinary nonnormal mortality… doctor person."

The policemen looked at him suspiciously.

"With Torchwood," he said, "just… Nevermind. Why don't you two head off to the pub and leave this to us?"

They glanced over to the detective, who waved them over tiredly. Shrugging, they left, and the two men from Torchwood stepped into the Snyder household and went upstairs, where the late Jane Snyder still lay in her bed.

"Her husband was taken for questioning," Jack Harkness flipped through the book of notes the detective had given him. "But he didn't see or hear anything. When he came upstairs to go to bed, she was dead. No signs of foul play."

"No, there wouldn't be."

Jane Snyder was still lying exactly as she had been found, still and pale in her bed. There was no mistaking that she was dead- her skin was horribly white and her eyes were open, glassy and fixed blankly on the ceiling. There was not a drop of blood to be found anywhere in the room, nor was there any visible wound on her body.

The Doctor looked at her for only a moment before declaring, "This is definitely them. Massive blood loss, no external sign of trauma, no visible wounds… Our vampire friends did this, that much is certain." He reached into his pocket and withdrew his modified cellular phone.

Jack poked around the room. "Must have come in through the window. Hypnotised her into giving an invitation."

"Looks like it. Not much to do here, then." He raised the phone to his ear, waiting as it rang. "Jenny."

His daughter was back at Torchwood headquarters while the others investigated each of the murders in teams of two. "Hey. What's going on over there?"

"Definitely Malsangurian. Seems pretty straightforward- knock at the window, wrangles an invitation, proves whoever said that 'there is no free lunch' dead wrong."

"Got it." There was a brief silence as Jenny marked the location on a map of London. The team had been poring over records of violent crimes in the past six months, determining which incidents were results of the alien uprising, when the crimes had first started, and whether there was any discernible pattern.

"How are the others doing?"

"Well…" he could hear her flipping through papers. "Martha and Gwen have determined that Hargreaves was killed by a Malsangurian, too. There's still no leads on what happened to her baby, though- Elizabeth. She's just… gone."

"What about the baby's father?"

"Looked into that." Her voice was a bit smug. "Divorced before the kid was born, now lives in Wales, contacted by police earlier this morning. Doesn't look like he was involved, though."

Of course he wasn't. The victims had likely been chosen at random, but if there was any pattern at all- he had to look into every possible avenue of inquiry. "What about Mickey and Ianto?"

"Andrew Trent bled to death. Very slowly. He was cut nearly a hundred times- definite signs of a struggle, there's blood everywhere- and his throat was sliced open. Nasty. And the bum nearby was just… shot. No identity yet on him."

"Okay, call Mickey and Ianto," he said, "Tell then to stay there and not to touch anything. Just keep the place exactly like it is now. I'll be over as soon as I can."

"Why?"

"I have a hunch. Just call them." He hung up the phone and turned to Jack.

"Did the others find anything?"

"Nothing that we couldn't have guessed. This is a message to me. Another part of his damned game." He sighed angrily. "What time is it?"

"Quarter past nine."

"I'm sure that it's time for a cup of tea somewhere."

Jack continued to poke around the room aimlessly, looking for clues that weren't there. "So now what?"

"Andrew Trent, and the homeless man. I have a hunch."

"Yeah. I heard."

"I usually have good hunches, and there's something odd about those two," He began pacing, working things out. "Nine murders and two disappearances in one night… eleven murders, then, because the other two are dead. All of them are somehow inexplicable, bizarre- except for two."

"The bum who was shot through the head, and the guy killed in the hit-and-run." Jack frowned. "You don't think that the car accident had anything to do with the other ten?"

"No, that must have just been a coincidence. But the man who was shot was found right beside Andrew Trent, and his murder was definitely suspicious. Which makes the homeless man's just as suspicious."

"Why did he just shoot him?"

The Doctor smiled. "Exactly."

"Maybe it means-"

The two of them were interrupted by the sudden chiming of the cell phone in the Doctor's pocket. Surprised, he answered it. "Hello?"

It was Jenny. "Are you near a TV?"

There was a flat-screen television mounted on the wall in front of the bed. "Yes."

"Turn it on."

He picked up the remote on the nightstand and flicked the power button. "What channel?"

"Any channel."

As he and Jack watched the TV flicker on, a photograph of the same room they were standing in filled the screen. In the picture, Jane Snyder was already dead and lying in the same place she was now, and the window revealed darkness outside.

"That was taken last night," the Doctor said, before he was interrupted by a voice from the television.

"Hello, citizens of London! More specifically, hello Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Gwen Cooper, Mickey Smith, Ianto Jones, and, of course, the Doctor and his new friend Jenny!"

"It's him. It's the same voice." He turned to Jack, who was already speaking to someone on his own cell phone.

Jack looked up. "It's on every television, every channel."

"He's speaking to all of London."

Meanwhile, the voice continued in its strangely smooth, cheerful tone. "Many of you may already be aware, many of you may not be. Ten citizens were murdered last night." The picture on the TV changed. Jane Snyder's corpse disappeared to reveal that of Jeremy Liddell, on his back outside of the pub where he had died. "And many more of you may die in the future." Now it was Stacy Hargreaves' corpse on the TV.

Jenny's voice spoke from the phone still in the Doctor's hand. "I don't know how he's doing this. I can't pinpoint the signal- this isn't using human technology." She was almost panicked. It was a very rare occasion when a Time Lord found themselves outsmarted.

"Now," the television said, and the picture changed again to the mangled corpse of the shopkeeper, ripped to pieces by some unknown beast. Even Jack and the Doctor found this one gruesome. "Whether or not any more of you die is entirely dependent on one man, who has chosen to represent you all."

"That's you, doc."

"I know, Jack."

Barely suppressed glee when the voice spoke again. "That's right. _He_ has _chosen_ to represent you. You have absolutely no say in the matter, and there is absolutely nothing you can do. Is this fair?" A laugh, and photographs of Trent and the homeless man. "Do you want a complete stranger to decide all of your fates, given the privilege simply because he _wants_ it?"

Through the window, the Doctor could see the other side of the street out of the corner of his eye. One of the doors burst open and a man stormed out, waving a double-barrelled shotgun and searching for something to shoot, clearly intent on having his own say in his fate whether the TV voice liked it or not. _Be damned if they're going to go down without a fight_, the Doctor thought and smiled in spite of himself.

"And now, a question for your would-be saviour. He knows who he is." The picture was now Alice LaBarbera lying in a dark alley. "Do you have the right to dictate the rules that the world lives by, to determine for them what is right and what is wrong? Shouldn't humanity have the right to determine its own fate? Is what you are doing _right?_" David Macmillan, slumped in the passenger seat of the patrol car.

The screen when blank for a moment, and then was occupied by a short video that would ultimately be responsible for one of the worst periods in London's storied history. It was of the missing police officer, Mahmud Helou, holding the missing baby, Elizabeth Hargreaves. Both were clearly still alive; Mahmud was rocking the child gently and Elizabeth's arms reached up towards his bearded face.

Mahmud looked up, straight at the camera, and smiled. "There once was a woman whose head was filled with all sorts of wondrous knowledge. But you took it away from her. You will be at her home in one hour, or she will die, along with her entire family. Come alone."

The Doctor turned the TV off, glanced at Jack, and sprinted headlong out of the room.

* * *

_That's how he did it. Why didn't I see that before? Her head was filled with so much knowledge, so many memories, so much of- well… me. And I did my best to remove it, but you can't ever really get rid of thoughts, can you? They're always still there, echoing about, imprinted on her mind…_

_What have I done to her? What has he done to her? Did he reawaken those memories, locked away, and drink his fill as the sheer volume of information overwhelmed her and destroyed her mind? Did he siphon away that knowledge form within the recesses of her consciousness, absorbing it without ever making her aware?_

_At least now I know. I know how he knows me, who I am, where I've been, what I've done, how he can predict my every move. He's seen all my memories._

He left the TARDIS two blocks away, and ran the rest of the way there. It had been forty-five minutes since the city-wide television broadcast and the streets were almost empty, with people riveted by the sudden upswing in news coverage on televisions. The Doctor met nobody on his way to Donna Noble's house.

The house seemed empty, too. He knocked several times, but nobody answered. Eventually he tried the door and, finding it unlocked, entered the Noble household.

"Donna?" There was no answer. "Wilfred? Um… Sylvia?"

"They're gone."

The voice- that damned familiar voice- had come from the kitchen. Rather than enter the room, the Doctor shouted from the hallway.

"What have you done with them?"

A brief laugh. "Nothing, Doctor. They've gone on holiday. To… New York, I believe."

And in the meantime there was an alien invasion in London. Donna Noble, missing out again.

"Come, sit down."

The Doctor stepped into the kitchen. There was a young man lounging in one of the chairs, eating cookies. He was tall and lean, like the Doctor himself, and his black eyes held the same sparkle of intelligence. He was dressed casually, a sardonic smirk on his pale face.

There was another place at the table set directly across from him. A glass of milk and more chocolate-chip cookies waited for the Doctor. At the centre of the table were two silver swords set in black sheaths, apparently tossed there haphazardly.

The pale man held out a hand and the Doctor took it. "Hello, Doctor. It's an honour, believe me." He smiled and gestured towards the empty seat. "You can call me Mr. Gabriel."

"Gabriel," the Doctor noted. Any alias, no matter how effective, held some clue as to the identity of its owner. "And where might that come from?" He dunked one of the cookies and ate it. Not poisoned.

"Do you remember the story of Exodus, Doctor? An angel descended from the sky to free an oppressed people by slaughtering a portion of the oppressors. That might seem a bit cruel to some, necessary to others. The difference between you and me, Doctor."

"You think you're an angel, then?"

He was maddeningly cheerful. "No, no, of course not. I just liked the story."

"Why are you doing this?"

Gabriel ignored him, running a hand through unkempt dark hair and sipping from his glass. "In fact, Doctor, if one of us is indeed an angel… it's you. An immortal guardian, pronouncing judgment on evildoers."

The Doctor looked him right in the eye and smiled. "Most people would be scared. But not you. Oh, never. Why is that?"

He shrugged noncommittally. "Because I know I have you beaten."

"Like so many before you."

Gabriel blinked, and then laughed. It was different from before, without a hint of malice- he simply found the Doctor's statement funny. "Well done, Doctor. Well done."

The two creatures that so resembled human beings sat at the Noble's kitchen table, seemingly at ease but thinking furiously. Gabriel was both alike and different to so many of the Doctor's old enemies, and at the same time something completely new. Beyond the basic humanoid form, there were absolutely no clues as to what species he might be.

"But you know," Gabriel said, "All that these people want is a better life for themselves, and their families. They feel that you are denying them this life, and that I can give it to them."

"Is murder what it takes to live in comfort?"

"More cookies?" When the Doctor shook his head, Gabriel continued. "I am a lot like you are, Doctor. I see a situation that I believe is wrong, and I do what I can to correct it. Do you have any more of a right to do so than I do?"

"Listen," the Doctor said. Which was no good- they _never_ listened. "You might be doing what you're doing out of a misguided sense of justice, or maybe not. And maybe I am wrong to assume I know what's right and what isn't. That doesn't matter. What matters is that people are getting hurt, and you and I can work together to find a solution where that doesn't happen."

Gabriel smiled. "You always think that you understand, Doctor, that you _know._ When was the last time you were wrong? Even better, when was the last time you admitted it?"

He finished his milk and cookies and stood, grabbing one of the swords on the table. When, after a moment, nothing happened, he gestured that the Doctor should take the other one.

He did so, examining it. It was unlike any he had ever seen, some sort of bizarre combination between a French rapier, a Japanese katana, and the ceremonial blades used in ritual combat by the Sontarans.

"You like it? I made the both of them myself."

"Good for you. You want me to put them on the refrigerator?"

He snorted. "Follow me."

The two of them stepped out of the house and into the empty streets, taking a path up to the small hill where Wilfred Mott had once gazed at the stars, and dreamed. The day was sunny, but cool at the same time, and they stood for a while in the brisk light.

The Doctor spoke first. "You wanted to meet me here, and it clearly wasn't to negotiate. Why?"

Gabriel took his sword and fastened it to a strap that hung about his waist, so that it rested horizontally against the small of his back. An odd way of carrying the weapon, uncommon on planet Earth but quite popular elsewhere. "All you ever do is try to keep people talking. You ask questions and you throw insults and you lie and you tell the truth."

"And all you ever seem to do is tell me everything that I always do."

"You see? Keep me talking."

"With good reason," the Doctor said. "When people are talking, they aren't killing. Talking means that people are thinking. I like thinking."

"Hm. I like thinking, too." Gabriel lay a hand on the hilt of his sword. "If I were to offer you, right now, a chance to end all of this- would you take it?"

"Depends what this chance of yours is."

He drew the blade, spinning it smoothly in a showy little arc. " Well, let's do some thinking. When we come right down to it, this whole affair is essentially between you and me."

"A game, you said."

"Pretty much. We have our pieces, we have our playing field," he gestured grandly at what part of London was visible from the hilltop they currently occupied. "And it all comes down to which one of us is better. And so, I offer you this chance."

He turned to face the Doctor, the blade held loosely at his side. "You and I will duel, right here and now, to determine an end to this."

The Doctor looked briefly at the sword in his hand, and at the inscrutable face of his opponent. And then he did what he always did, tossed the weapon to the ground, and turned to leave.

"I could kill you right now!"

"And deprive yourself of the fun of beating me fair and square? No. Because while you were so busy telling me all about myself, I figured out a thing or two about you."

Gabriel snatched the second sword from the ground and ran to catch up with the Doctor. "You can fight. I know you can. What if, through violence, you can prevent the deaths of countless others? No, you _will_ prevent them."

The Doctor kept walking. "Do you honestly think that I haven't asked myself those same questions, a thousand times? Everything you've been saying, I've heard it all before. Guilt trips won't work, no matter how true they are."

He cackled. "What you're doing might seem right, now. But when your friends are dying around you- then, Doctor, you will regret not taking this chance. You are going to wish that you had killed me."

The Doctor silently withdrew a piece of paper from one of the many pockets in his coat, and handed it to Gabriel. He unfolded it, read what was written there and laughed, writing his own response with a pen from his own pocket. He handed the paper back to the Doctor.

"I guess I have your answer."

"You do."

"Well, then, you go back to your side of the board, Doctor, and I'll go back to mine, and then we shall resume playing." Gabriel waved jauntily. "Seeya."

"They're following you now, Mr. Gabriel, but I don't think they'll be quite so eager to do so when they see what kind of a person you really are."

He shrugged again and loped off down the street, and the Doctor strode back to the TARDIS.

Once he was behind the locked blue door, he slumped heavily in the chair beside the control panel, and wondered whether or not he was doing the right thing.

It was a dilemma that he agonized over after almost every little adventure, every time lives were lost or won and he played a part. Nobody ever saw him do this, or knew just how difficult it was to shoulder his burden and wonder whether or not it was right of him to take it.

It was true that he had, thousands of times before, asked himself whether or not one murder was acceptable in order to prevent thousands more. But it was also true that he still wasn't sure whether or not the answer he'd arrived at was the correct one.

* * *

One brief note- in older vampire literature (Dracula, for example) vampirism was not transmitted through merely biting the victim. Instead, the creation of a new vampire was done via a ritual where the vampire drank the victim's blood, and then forced the victim to drink some of its own. For plot reasons, and because it's so damned cool, I decided to use the 'classic' version of changing people into vampires.

Also, the policemen Ron, Don, and Bettman are named for a reason. If you know who, then you are awesome.

Big thanks for all the great reviews. Keep reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Has anyone recognised the major recurring elements or themes yet? I'm very interested to see how well I'm communicating this aspect of the story.

Also, this chapter contains several important clues- concerning many things. Gabriel's identity and motivations, future events in the plotline, and the changing aspects of several of the main characters. Look out for another appearance of a former Companion!

* * *

5

You Will Always Try to Save Me In the End

"_Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other."_

_- Francis Bacon, _Apotheghms of Death

* * *

"So how did it go?"

The Doctor did not return to Torchwood until six o'clock that evening, having gone to investigate Andrew Trent's murder immediately after meeting the strange man behind all of this. He had combed the street and alleyway for hours, eventually returning dejected to Torchwood and retreating into the TARDIS.

He and Jenny were sitting in the projection room, where the translucent game of Ri still hovered. The Doctor had examined, in detail, a piece of paper from the depths of his coat pocket. Eventually he had punched something into the control panel, and the blue pieces had made another move.

"Well?" Jenny asked. "What happened?"

"Same old, same old," the Doctor answered, "The usual bad guy stuff. Accusations, threats, demands… you know." He continued to contemplate the glowing planets of the Ri game. "But…"

Jenny arched an eyebrow. "But what?"

"He's no usual bad guy. He knows too much, he's too smart- far too smart. Maybe even as smart as I am."

"And God forbid that should happen."

He glared at her, but it was softened with a humorous smile. "It does worry me. He's been one step ahead so far, this whole time. And that just might be the key to this whole mess."

"Who is he? And while we're on that subject, _what_ is he?"

The Doctor's eyes flicked over each of the glowing aliens and destroyed planets. "I don't know."

"You've been saying that far too often lately."

"Never make the mistake of thinking you know everything, Jenny. Because it's what we don't know that always winds up being the most important."

She felt that, at the moment, there were far too many things that they didn't know. The meeting with the leader of the aliens- one Mr. Gabriel- had raised more questions than it had answered, and she had a nasty feeling that there were layers to this that they hadn't even begun to consider. "You really think that this guy knows something you don't? Or that he's more clever than you are?"

He gave a wan smile. "I'm not the smartest person in the Universe, Jenny. Why, I bet that there is perhaps a tiny chance that there are maybe five, or even six people who might be maybe almost as smart or smarter than I am." Her father flicked a switch, and the red side made its move. He'd taken one of the planets near the centre of the game board- an aggressive move, usually intended to force the other player into a quick resolution.

"Now you're sounding a bit more like yourself."

His smile this time was genuine, and just a bit predatory. "Oh, I'm feeling a lot more like myself. Because sitting here, thinking so much- well that just got my synapses rolling. And I realized something."

"And what did you realize?"

"Well, I figured out why football games are so boring."

Jenny blinked. "What?"

The Doctor jumped to his feet. "That's because the best defence isn't just a good defence- it's also a good offence. And what makes a good offence?"

"An expensive striker?"

"That too. But what really makes a good offence- _really_, when you get right down to it- all you need is a better offence than the other guy."

And now Jenny's smile was a predatory grin. "Are we going on the offensive? Can I get my boots?" Being a natural soldier, she insisted on keeping a pair of steel-reinforced armored combat boots around for kicking things, hurting other things, and especially for hurting things by kicking them.

The Doctor bounded out of the room, heading for the hotel suite that was Torchwood's temporary HQ. "Get the boots if you want, but no guns!"

He almost ran headlong into Jack and Ianto sprinting the other way in the hotel lobby.

"Doctor!" said Jack. "We have to move!"

"What? Why? What's happening?"

"I just got off the phone with the chief of police in London," Ianto explained. "They want control of the investigation back form Torchwood."

The Doctor looked back and forth between the two of them. "Wha- what? Did you say no?"

Ianto sighed. "They asked if we had taken the family of Mahmud Helou in for questioning. I replied that they are under no suspicion at this time."

"Remember that video clip during our buddy's little speech?" Jack asked. "The one showing the Malsangurian in the body of Mahmud Helou, holding the little baby that went missing? Well, that didn't go down too well."

A slow sinking feeling started to overcome the Doctor's enthusiasm. "They think it's him. They think that Helou was somehow involved, don't they?"

"Yep. And they're now forcibly taking this into their own hands. The London police think that David Macmillan died at the hands of Mahmud Helou, and those are two of their own. They think they have a right to handle it themselves. And the public's on their side."

Of course. Gabriel had planted the video on purpose, as a red herring for the London Police. No doubt he had known full well what they would do, which meant…

He turned to Jack. "You drive. Leave Gwen, Mickey, and Martha here, tell them to keep an eye on the television and the streets. I'll get Jenny, and then we'll go. Hurry!"

"What about the TARDIS?"

"Too risky! They'll be looking for it!" With only a moment to consider the irony, the Doctor sprinted right back into the TARDIS and yelled for his daughter. "Jenny! Get out here now! We need to go!"

"What? What's happening?"

"I'll explain later. Just- just hurry up!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!"

"And Jenny…"

"Yeah?"

He clenched his teeth. Would he be willing to sacrifice the only real family he had for the sake of his principles? And would it be worth it to compromise them? There was no time-

"Jenny. Bring something to protect yourself with."

The only response was silence, but it was a significant one. And then there was the clatter of something being sifted through, and Jenny sprinted out of the TARDIS' depths with a laser pistol and wearing her combat boots.

"Got your ass-kicking boots on, I see."

"Don't leave home without 'em."

The two exited the ship to find one of Torchwood's black cars waiting in front. The Doctor jumped in the front passenger seat and Jenny sat in the back with Ianto.

As Jack pulled out of the parking lot, he turned to the Doctor. "You know, I still don't really know where we're going."

"Where does Helou's family live?"

"His parents and his sister live maybe fifteen minutes away. They're the closest family that he has, so I'm guessing that's where the cops are headed."

"Get there in ten."

Jenny poked her head through the gap between seats. "Dad. What's going on?"

"The London police have retaken control of the investigation, and they're going to arrest Helou's family. But our Mr. Gabriel, he planned this. He's going to be waiting for them when they arrive."

"Why?"

"Because he needs the London police, and the populace in general, to have a target- someone they can place the blame for his crimes on. That way, he can move about completely undetected while the city falls into chaos."

"These humans, they just start running about screaming at just about anything, don't they?" Jenny remarked idly. "Doesn't take much to throw you lot into a citywide riot."

"Hey!" said Ianto.

Jack laughed. "She's kinda right."

"Way to stand up for the human race, Jack."

"Can't disagree with a pretty face."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"You watch it, buddy."

The Doctor cleared his throat loudly. "Ahem. Sorry to interrupt. Potential life-or-death situation here. Maybe not the best time."

"Sorry."

They pulled up in front of the home where Mahmud Helou's parents and sister lived. Someone had been there before them- there were three police cruisers parked out front, their lights on but the officers gone. Most distressing of all was that every light in the Helou's home was off, and an eerie silence hung about the entire street.

"This looks bad." Jenny craned her head to look through the window at the house. "It's all dark and quiet. Maybe we're too late."

The Doctor opened the car door. "Jack, come with me. Jenny, you stay here with Ianto- but if it looks like we need help, come in. And remember, I'm not your dad. I'm the Doctor."

The three nodded mutely, and Jack and the Doctor stepped out of the car and strode across the lawn towards the dark home. Scanning the other buildings on the street, the Doctor could see several neighbours watching through gaps in the curtains or blinds.

"Jack, you go in first."

"Oh, of course. It's not like either of us can't die."

"It's just strategy. And I like my face the way it is, thanks."

Jack slowly crept up the steps and tried the front door. It was unlocked, and swung open silently. With a glance back at the Doctor, he stepped over the threshold.

A silver something flitted out of the blackness, and there was a sudden flash of scarlet at Jack's neck. He fell to the ground clutching his throat, blood seeping through his fingers.

The Doctor sprinted into the darkness and, at the same time, he heard car doors open behind him. Jenny and Ianto ran across the lawn, and he called back to them.

"Don't come in!"

They stood out in front of the house Squinting in an attempt to see what was going on inside. The Doctor stood in the Helou's home, and as his own eyes adjusted to the blackness he saw several things at once.

The floor of the home was littered with corpses, all of which were dressed in the uniform of the London police.

A great hulking something was crouching in the Helou's living room, watching him with eyes that shone in the darkness.

And the strange genius that called himself Gabriel, well-armed and dressed all in black, stood just inside the doorway with his back pressed to the wall, silver sword still dripping with Jack's blood.

"What's up, Doc?"

"What have you done?"

Gabriel shrugged and swung the front door shut. Jenny's and Ianto's sudden shouts were abruptly cut off, and the only noise was Jack's laboured breathing on the floor, and the thick panting of the thing in the living room.

"What have I done? I made my move. And incidentally, what was yours?"

"I placed one of my Sontarans on Olbia."

"An aggressive maneuver." Gabriel sheathed his sword and stepped carefully over the body of a policewoman. "Unusual for someone like you."

The Doctor fought to keep the rage out of his voice. He was angry, angrier than he had been in years. Here was a man who had absolutely no regard for any sort of life at all, to the point where he gambled an entire planet on what he saw as an entertaining game. "Listen. And I mean listen very, very, very closely because this is your one chance."

Gabriel waved his hands in some grand gesture that was intended to be knowing, dismissive, and confident, all at the same time.

"Stop this. If one more person, human or otherwise, dies because of you-"

"You'll what? Kill me?" He laughed. "Doctor, when was the last time you actually killed anyone?"

"I just might make an exception for you."

He saw through the Doctor's bluff right away. "No. I know you, and you never make any exceptions. No matter how deeply I may wrong you, no matter how much you hate me… you will always try to save me in the end."

On the ground between them, Jack gurgled, fell down, and died.

The beast in the next room moved closer, preparing for something that it sensed was about to happen, perhaps with some long-forgotten animal instinct.

Gabriel laid a hand on one of the two swords resting on his back, just above his waist.

"I'm trying to save you now," The Doctor said.

"How very kind of you."

"Just answer. Will you stop?"

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. "No."

It was at that particular moment when everything went straight to Hell.

Jack Harkness rolled out of the pool of blood on the floor and onto his back, reaching into the folds of his coat.

Gabriel saw him, and moved. He was fast- much faster than Jack- but had been caught by surprise, and was unable to move completely out of the way. Jack shot him high in the shoulder, and Gabriel was spun backwards by the force of the bullet hitting him.

The Doctor charged him, and Gabriel slid one of the gleaming swords out of its sheath. At the last minute, however, he saw Jack taking aim again and used a split second of his time to run him through.

The Doctor hit him hard, throwing him off-balance and to the ground. He grasped the arm holding the sword, pinning it to the ground, and shoved his wounded shoulder onto the floor.

The genius shrieked with sudden pain, and then growled something in a feral language that the Doctor recognized but couldn't name.

"Don't… kill… him."

_What? Don't kill him? Is he talking to me…?_ Then the Doctor remembered the creature in the other room, which was now in midair and speeding towards him. _Uh-oh. He's talking _about_ me._

The beast took a running jump into the Doctor, tearing him off of Gabriel and slamming him to the ground. Dimly, he could hear gunshots- the world was dark, and smelled of fur and sweat and blood.

He kicked out desperately, trying to shift the massive weight, and claws raked viciously into his back.

_Awww, not the coat…_

"I said _don't_ kill him!" Gabriel shouted.

Several shots rang out- Jack shot the beast three times, and then Gabriel tore his own handgun out of its holster on his shoulder and shot him twice. He kicked viciously at Jack's now motionless body, before a red bolt zipped out of nowhere and melted the metal in his hand.

"God_damnit_!"

Jenny stepped forward, keeping the laser pistol trained on the man now clutching his wounded hand. Ianto, beside her, kept his own weapon aimed at the furry mass that was now lying on the ground next to the Doctor. The two had gone round the back of the house and kicked in the door, taking Gabriel and the beast by surprise.

"Right," she said. "You there. In the black."

"Hiya. You're really pretty, did you know that?" Gabriel beamed, despite being covered in blood.

"Hands on your head. Don't think I won't shoot you, 'cause I really, really want to."

The Doctor painfully hauled himself to his feet. "Jenny, wait. I need to talk to him."

Jack drew a great whooping breath and then leapt to his feet. "I don't know about you guys, but I am having one rough night."

The Doctor looked Gabriel right in the eyes, attempting to probe his mind. It was like trying to poke your finger through a brick wall- impossible and more painful the harder you tried. So he was a psychic being himself, then. And a powerful one, at that.

Best just to straight up ask him, then. "What have you done with Mahmud Helou's family?"

"Kidnapped 'em." Gabriel raised his wounded hand and examined it. The fingers and palm were badly burned, and the end of his index finger had turned a nasty black color. "That really hurts." He prodded the remains of his handgun with his foot. They were smoking slightly.

"Good. You deserve it. Now, where have you taken them?"

"Back to my place. At least, some of us did. We stayed here and laid a little trap for you."

The Doctor nodded. "Okay, then. Tell me- what species are you?"

"None."

"That's not one of the options. You have to be _something._"

He next cradled where Jack had shot him in the shoulder. "Damn, that hurts. And no, I don't have to be a specific _species._"

Jenny looked at her father briefly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say. And I say what I mean."

"Stop talking like that!"

"Like what?"

"Just- just- where did you take Helou's family?"

"Told you. My place."

"And where's that?"

"Why, it's where I live. Silly."

The Doctor thought over the answers he had been given and realized two things. The first was that Gabriel was never going to give them a straight answer to any question. The second was that he was stalling.

"Jenny. Jack. Ianto."

They turned to look at him.

"Take him back to Torchwood. We'll question him there." As the other three moved to surround Gabriel, the Doctor kept his eyes on the darkness of the house, and was rewarded when he saw the shapes of two shadowy figures moving towards them. The vampires, most likely.

"What about that furry thing?" Jack waved his gun at the beast lying on the floor.

The Doctor stepped forward to examine it, his eyes widening as he recognized the creature. "This… this is a _werewolf._ Where did you get a werewolf?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Come on. Psychic being that leaps from host body to host body, relying on blood psychology for reproduction? She's practically a cousin of the Malsangurians. Her name's Suzie."

"Yeah, well, she isn't doing too well right now." The Doctor spoke into the darkness of the home, at the dark figure hiding there. "I know you're there. Listen to me. You can either save your friend here, who has done nothing but try to help your cause, or you can risk your lives for _him_." He punctuated his words by prodding Gabriel sharply.

"Right," Jenny said, soldier's instinct taking over. "Jack and I will cover you. Da- Doctor, you and Ianto get him to the car."

They each grabbed one of Gabriel's arms roughly, hauling him to his feet. "Come on. Let's go."

"Ooh, I'm a hostage? Be gentle, it's my first time."

"Shut up."

The strange-looking group crossed the Helou's front lawn. Across the street, the neighbours locked their doors. Much to the Doctor's annoyance, Gabriel wouldn't stop snickering.

When they reached the car, he tried to get in the front passenger's seat, "I call shotgun!"

Ianto threw him in back. "Right. How do we do this?"

The Doctor looked up at the Helou's home, but could see nothing. "Okay. Okay. Something's not right about this. Jenny, you sit in back with him and Ianto. Jack and I sill stay up front, but I'll drive."

"Can you even drive a car? I, for one, feel distinctly unsafe."

Jenny kicked Gabriel. "You are no longer allowed to talk. Come on- let's just go. Now."

They piled in, the Doctor gunned the engine, and the car peeled out of the quiet suburban street.

"Where are you going? Torchwood's the other way."

"Just make sure we're not being followed."

Jenny shifted over so as to get a better look behind them and, sure enough, there was another car following them. Squinting, she could make out the face of Mahmud Helou behind the wheel. "Damn. Doctor, they're after us!"

"Can you put some music on, please?"

Nobody bothered to hit Gabriel this time. Somebody leaned out of the passenger-side window on the other car- Asiman was taking aim with a semi-automatic rifle.

"They're shooting at us!"

"Well shoot back, then!" Jack yelled.

Two bullets ricocheted off of the car trunk. Swearing in four different languages, Jenny punched out the side window and leaned out. Asiman saw her and swung his weapon around, but Jenny was faster and fired two shots by his ear. He ducked back inside the car.

The Doctor floored the accelerator, but the Malsangurians kept pace, attempting to shoot out their tires. Jenny and Ianto fired back as best they could, but it was almost hopeless with the handguns they were using.

"I need something else! Do we have any bigger guns?"

"You're lucky I let you use that one!"

"Fat lot of good it's doing now!"

The two vehicles sped through the dark London streets, exchanging shots with each other and swerving madly, one to lose and the other to catch up. The Doctor slammed the brakes and spun the wheel, sliding into a side street- but the vampire in Helou's body performed the same manoeuvre and was after them again immediately.

"Can't shake him." He turned down another side street, and another, but his efforts were futile. "Try to shoot out the tires."

"Not with these." Jenny spared a moment to gesture at the sidearms she and Ianto were using. "We need something a lot more accurate."

"Like what?"

Jenny fired twice and ducked, and a bullet punched a hole in the windshield right where her head had been seconds before. "Like that _rifle_ he is using!"

Asiman rattled off three more shots, and this time the rear windshield shattered, spraying glass shards over Ianto, Jenny, and Gabriel. Ianto lifted himself over the edge of the backseat and fired back, punching holes in the hood of the pursuing vehicle.

Jack scanned the road ahead, looking for an escape route. His gaze strayed to the right, where he saw a dark shape bounding over the rooftops, silhouetted against the moonlight. "What the hell is that thing?"

The Doctor spared it a glance. "It's a werewolf. Whether it's the same, or a different one, I can't tell."

"Well, just a shot in the dark here, but I'm guessing it's after us!"

The creature bounded down onto the concrete and ran alongside the car, keeping pace with it easily.

Gabriel leaned forward. "Don't stand a chance against that thing. Your only hope is to kill it."

"Don't listen to him!" the Doctor ordered. "Jenny, Ianto, hang on!"

He hit the brakes again, sending the car into a spin so that it was now perpendicular to the road itself. This didn't last long, as the Malsangurian's car slammed into the back of theirs, whipping them wildly around so that they had now turned one-eighty degrees.

He hit the gas and the car lurched forward, sending the already off-balanced trio in the back seat into a jumbled pile. Gabriel tried to seize the laser pistol in Jenny's hand, but she snatched it away, punching him swiftly in the gut.

"Jack, call Torchwood. Tell them we need backup."

He dialled and put the phone to his ear. "Nobody's picking up." Jack shifted in his seat to grab Gabriel. "What have you done?"

"Ow," said Gabriel.

Ianto was trying his own cell phone. "Shit. None of them are picking up on their own mobiles. Jack, something must have happened."

Jack turned to the Doctor. "I'll bet you any money that _this_ guy," he shook Gabriel sharply, "has something to do with it."

"Ow! Ow, ow, ow…"

The Doctor turned down an alleyway, putting their pursuers out of sight- Helou-vampire's car had slid into the werewolf, and they appeared to no longer be following the Doctor. He continued to drive, taking several more twists and turns, until he was confident that they could stop. Pulling into a driveway, he whipped around to face their prisoner. "Right. Tell us what's happening at Torchwood. Now."

Gabriel didn't answer, but instead gasped in pain, his face contorting twistedly.

"Jack, don't hurt him! Let go of him."

"I didn't do anything." Still, he let Gabriel go, whereupon he slumped over in the back seat and slid downwards.

"It… it hurts… Ung…"

Jenny lifted him up, none too gently, and examined the bullet wound in his shoulder. "It's fine. You'll live. Now, talk."

"Not… that…" Gabriel's free hand strayed downwards to clutch at his abdomen. "Oh, God…" His movements became much more jerky and he writhed in obvious agony.

"If this is a trick, it isn't going to work."

"Doctor- I think there might really be something wrong with him." Jenny bent down.

One hand reached up to grab her arm. "I need to get out of the car." Gabriel scrambled for the door, but Ianto and Jenny held him back. "Let me out… Agh!"

"Nice try."

"Please, I need to get... get out! Just- just let me get outside for a moment!"

"Let him out," the Doctor said. When the others turned to look at him, he added, "You can shoot him if he tries anything."

Gabriel lurched out of the car and stood unsteadily in the cold night. Breathing gulps of fresh air, he appeared to calm down slightly. And then he twitched oddly and he pitched forward, screaming in sudden agony and clutching his head.

"What's wrong? What's happening?" Jenny darted forward to catch him as he fell. Her hands came away slick with blood. "Oh, God, he's bleeding badly. Doctor!"

The Doctor calmly got out of the car and strode to where Gabriel lay on the ground. Rolling him over, the Doctor saw that blood was seeping out of his nose and ears. The man coughed, and more of it splattered his black clothes.

"I can help you."

Defiant as ever, he laughed wetly. "You don't offer the kind of help I need."

"Don't be stupid. Call your people. Tell them to stop all this anti-human nonsense, and then I can cure you."

Gabriel beckoned for the Doctor to lean closer, and he did- just not too close. "Do you know what can cure me?"

"I might."

Laughter again. "No. No. Do you know what can cure me?"

The Doctor frowned. "What, then?"

Gabriel looked him in the eyes, and for a split second each got a glimpse of the brilliance behind the other's. "I want you- you personally, Doctor- to take that gun." He pointed at the weapon in Ianto's hand. "And to shoot me in the head."

_He's brilliant. He's manipulative. He's merciless. He's fearless. And- maybe- he's dying. And that could just be why he's doing this._

"Get him back in the car. I don't have time to play his games- we need to get to Torchwood."

Gabriel cackled madly, and lifted himself to his feet easily. Not quite as weak as they had thought, then. "That's all it takes, Doctor! You have me right here! I'll even fight back- you can say it was self-defence!" He staggered slightly, but was caught before he fell again.

Jenny threw him into the backseat, and climbed in after him. All traces of agony gone, Gabriel was once again the callously cheerful individual he always was.

"Come on, where's that music? Tunes! I need driving tunes! Oh, and, and, and! We need to stop for ice-cream!"

* * *

When Martha came back to the hotel suite with paper bags of chips and hamburgers, she saw that Gwen had placed three handguns on the coffee table. Next to each of them was a gunbelt worn over the shoulder and three clips of ammunition.

"What're those for, then?"

"Jack called," Gwen said, taking one of the bags. "The other four have gone on some sort of mission. He said that they were taking guns."

"Guns?" Martha frowned. The Doctor would never allow his companions to be armed.

"I know. Suspicious, especially if the Doctor's with them. I figured if they need to be armed, then so do we."

Martha picked up one of the handguns, and loaded the clip. She left the safety catch on. "What do you think's going on, then?"

"Can't be good." Mickey entered the room. "But I reckon it might have something to do with this." He pointed at the television.

Onscreen, several microphones were pointed at the chief of police, who was being bombarded with question regarding the murders the previous evening. As Martha watched, he affirmed that the prime suspect was the police officer who had disappeared, Mahmud Helou, and that his family would be taken in for questioning.

"Course, we all know that Helou's just a victim. But good luck tellin' him that." Mickey took a bite of his cheeseburger. "Is this the number three combo or the number four?"

"Four."

"Ah. Doesn't that come with a side salad?"

"They phased that out."

The three continued to watch the television, although there was little point. All the news networks did was rehash the events of the last two days.

"You reckon we might be in danger, then?" Mickey pointed at the handguns with his hamburger. What many people don't realize is that it takes someone very skilled to point properly at anything with a hamburger, and Mickey considered himself quite the specialist in the discipline of food-related gestures.

"Well, think about it." Martha opened a Pepsi from the refrigerator. "This Gabriel the Doctor told us about, he thinks things through just as well as the Doctor. And I've seen what someone that smart can do if they want to raise hell."

"We just need to be careful, that's all," Gwen said. "Mind you, I'm a bit jealous of Ianto, off with those three with a chance of seeing some real action. So far, this whole affair's been nothing but investigation and mind games. Hardly any of our specialties, I'm sad to say."

Mickey made some complicated hand-signal at Martha and, understanding, she tossed him a can of soda. He opened it and took a swig. "You ask me, every time the Doctor gets involved things turn into some sort of outer-space version of Scooby-Doo. He's even got a Mystery Machine."

"Tell me about it," Martha laughed. "Still, wouldn't miss it for the world."

The three continued to eat fast food and watch TV. They were jolted out of their reverie by the sudden ringing of a telephone.

"That's not Torchwood's line," Gwen stood up. "That's the hotel room."

She picked it up, and a woman's voice greeted her on the other end. "Hi," it said, "It's me, Lilith. I was wondering if you could perhaps let us come up to your room?"

"What do you want, Lilith?" Gwen spoke as clearly as she could, and Martha and Mickey immediately looked up. Mickey swapped his burger for his handgun.

"Oh, just saying hi. I brought a couple of my friends- hope that's okay- and Sarah's here! Say hi, Sarah."

There was a brief clatter as the phone changed hands, and then a familiar voice spoke. There was a brief shake to it, almost imperceptible, but with the definite jarring tones of stress and, maybe, fear.

"Hello," she said. "I'm- um, I'm visiting with Lilith and her friends. It's Sarah. Sarah Jane Smith."

* * *

Because absolutely everything that's any good has to have a car chase in it (NOTE: Where necessary, one may also swap cars for horses, spaceships, domesticated ostriches, et cetera).

Thanks to everyone who reads, and a huge thanks to everybody who reviews.


	6. Chapter 6

And with this chapter, it is now officially possible to call the ending of this story. Go on, give it a try. I dare you.

* * *

6

The Agony of Change

_Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that it can be proven that the Doctor does, indeed, exist. The question still remains- what is he? All of the stories have him possessing the standard humanoid body characteristics, but it can be said with relative certainty that he is not one of the species belonging to the Shadow Proclamation._

_Also, we must not forget that the Doctor has seemingly changed his appearance more than once. Whether or not this is a fact of his biology, or that the title of 'Doctor' is passed down through generations is unknown. However, most scholars on the subject agree that whatever or whoever he may be, the Doctor is that rarest of things- a being that is totally and completely unique._

_-William H. Stetson, _'Real Life Angels: Weeping Statues, Krop Tor, the Doctor, and More.' _Copyright 5,000,000,025 EC, New Earth Intergalactic. Excerpt courtesy of the Library._

* * *

"Cardiff?"

"Yes, Jenny- Cardiff." The Doctor threw the car into park outside of Roald Dahl Plass and swiftly undid his necktie. He tossed it back to Jenny. "Put this over his eyes."

The five stepped out of the car, and Jenny slid the makeshift blindfold over Gabriel's eyes. As soon as she did so, he began chanting, "Pinãta! Pinãta! Pinãta!"

Jenny aimed a sharp kick at his knee. "Our friend Mr. Gabriel is either an anarchic genius, an insane weirdo, or just a plain old idiot."

Gabriel giggled.

"Or maybe all three," the Doctor said offhandedly. He led the group across the plaza, empty in the night, to the elevator that was the entrance to Torchwood Three. Having decided that whatever had happened to the temporary Torchwood base in London had been planned by Gabriel, he had reasoned that the best course of action was to remove Gabriel from the action as best as possible.

Gabriel himself was as maliciously giddy as ever. Save for the dried blood coating his clothing and face, there was no hint of the strange sickness that has struck him mere hours ago, and his manner couldn't be more different than that of the man who had looked the Doctor in the eyes and calmly asked for death.

Once they were inside Torchwood, they tossed Gabriel into one of the holding cells and withdrew to the monitoring room.

"Look at all this," Jenny marvelled, "He was armed to the teeth."

The extent of his personal effects were strew about on the floor. This included the two custom duelling swords, a hunting knife, a Swiss Army knife with laser attachments that wouldn't exist for a hundred years, a mismatched pair of handguns, an ancient derringer pistol sewn into the lining of his coat, five hand grenades- concussion, flash, smoke, incendiary, and confetti- two sticks of dynamite, several vials of various poisons, and most interesting of all-

"No way in hell," Ianto proclaimed, "a _lightsaber._"

He flicked a switch on the side of the silver device, and a glowing green blade materialized with a _snap-hiss_. He waved it around delicately, relishing the familiar noise it made when he did so.

"It's not a lightsaber," the Doctor said, plucking it from Ianto's grasp. He stuck his own hand in front of the glowing blade, and withdrew it, clearly undamaged. "It's a toy. Promotion for the movie remakes in a couple centuries."

"A toy?"

The Doctor flicked it off and tossed it into the pile. "You get it free with the combo meal."

"So what do we do now?" Jack asked. "We could try a hostage swap for Gwen, Mickey, and Martha."

"No," the Doctor said. "Right now, the most important thing is to keep _him,'_ he jabbed a thumb at the screen showing the interior of Gabriel's cell, "locked up."

"So we're just going to abandon them."

"I didn't say that. I never say that." He stood and ran his fingers through his hair. Jenny could almost hear him thinking. "Okay, right now, it's too late to run in there and save them. We might as well use the time we have to come up with a plan."

"Well, what's the plan?" Ianto looked between Jack and the Doctor, as if unsure where his next instructions would come from.

Reaching into his coat pocket, the Doctor withdrew a glass test tube. Within it was a small amount of blood. "Well first, we take a look at this."

Jenny's eyes widened. "When did you-"

"Our little fight inside the Helou's. He'd been shot in the shoulder, and so I thought it would be prudent if I took a small sample." He turned. "Jack. Is Torchwood equipped with a DNA reader?"

"Of course." He stood and began shifting through various instruments and computer banks lining the walls of the room. Eventually, he withdrew a handheld device, which he tossed to the Doctor.

"What's this?"

"A DNA reader?"

"No it's not." He fiddled with several of the buttons, and the machine bleeped weakly. "Jack, this thing is the Betamax of gene-extrapolation technology. Right up there with blood control and miniature novelty clones."

"Hey, it was the best we could find."

"Where'd you get it, a yard sale?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Well then, what do you suggest?"

He was already on the other side of the room, taking apart and putting together nearly a hundred million pounds' worth of equipment with nothing more than a sonic screwdriver and some duct tape. "A little field surgery."

Jenny strode over and began watching in earnest. "Try augmenting the user-interface chip with a bipolar magnet dealie."

"Where would I get the parts for that?"

"You could take apart your Game Boy."

"No I couldn't. I love my Game Boy."

"You have no problem with dismantling other people's electronics, though," Jack interjected. "Doc, I just thought of something."

"And what's that?"

He glanced back at the screen showing Gabriel sitting calmly in his holding cell. "Whatever plan we do come up with, somebody's got to stay behind to watch him."

The Doctor stopped for a moment, and then resumed working. "You're right. Jenny, you and Ianto stay here."

"What? But I want to go with you! I want to help!"

"Jenny." He tried to make two different sets of plugs fit with each other, and failed. "Kick this for me, please."

She kicked it with her armoured, steel-reinforced combat boots. It fit now.

"Jenny, It is, in fact, very very very important that you stay here, and I will explain this to you later. But for now," He flicked a switch, and the computer console hummed to life. "Let's see if we can figure out just what Mr. Gabriel is."

He poured the vial of blood into the machine, and after a few moments several images flickered onto a nearby screen. The four of them crowded around to see.

"Look at this," the Doctor said. "There are trace elements of several different species present in the blood. That's to be expected, though- he has been hanging around with aliens, and so have I. But look at this." He pointed to a particular strand of DNA that looked distinctly different from the conventionally human strand. For starters, it was a triple-helix, rather than a double.

A flick of the switch and a buzz of the sonic screwdriver, and the jumbled text underneath the image changed to read TIME LORD.

Jenny gasped. "No. No- it can't be."

"Quite right, Jenny. It can't be." The Doctor chuckled. "That's because that particular genetic code is, in fact, mine. I'd recognize it anywhere."

"Yours."

He nodded. "Oh, yeah. Remember that big werewolfy-thing? It slashed me pretty good, and I also scraped off this sample of blood with my bare hand. I imagine quite a bit of my own DNA was mixed in with it."

The screen changed to show more jumbled characters, next to bars and percentages. "Now here's where things get interesting. This sample of blood is a combination of… Sixty-three different species."

Two of the bars at the top of the screen were significantly larger than all the rest. The jumbled characters decoded, and they could all see that the majority of the sample was composed from HUMAN and TIME LORD genetic material.

Jenny didn't notice that. She was too busy gaping at the other species represented on the list.

DALEK was there. SONTARAN was too. So were MALSANGURIAN, OOD, TRAKENITE, LOTHARA, OLBIAN, MALCASSARIAN, VOGON, KRILLITANE, VIVISI, AXON, JUDOON and NEW YORKER. All present in varying proportions, too high to be incidental, and too low to represent a different subject.

"My God," she whispered. "What _is_ he?"

"Everything," her father said flatly. "Nothing. He might have been human, once. Now, he's become an amalgam of all of these different species, all wrapped up into one big unstable package."

"That's hideous."

He shook his head. "No. It's brilliant. Imagine… The genius it must have taken to do this to himself, the willpower to withstand the agony of _change_… That just might be the most incredible thing I have ever seen."

"But he hates himself," Ianto said. "I heard him. He wanted to die- he asked you to kill him."

The Doctor walked across the room so that he was standing in front of the monitoring screens. Gabriel was sitting upright with his eyes closed, something that the Doctor himself often did whilst thinking. "No. That just means that he's someone else who needs my help." He paused a moment, and then laughed. "Why would he do that to himself. _How_ could he do that?"

Jenny scanned the list of species again. "Look at this. He's taken something from so many different civilizations into himself. What was he trying to accomplish?"

"What's every two-bit maniac with a crazy idea trying to accomplish? Become a god. Take over the world. A jillion billion dollars. The usual."

"I dunno, Doctor." Jack joined him in watching the motionless Mr. Gabriel. "Something still seems weird about this guy. We're missing something."

"Maybe." And Jack was right, wasn't he? There still was something missing from the puzzle, a great many questions still left unanswered. "I'm going to talk to him again."

"What about?" asked Jenny.

The Doctor's hands danced over one of the room's many keyboards, and presently he drew up an exact diagram of the Ri game he and Gabriel had been playing, down to the most recent move. He transferred the file to his sonic screwdriver and tucked it into his pocket. "About these little games of his."

* * *

"Let it ring."

Martha looked briefly up at Lilith, and then returned her gaze to the telephone, until it stopped ringing.

Almost as soon as it had, the cell phone in her pocket went off. She sighed, and the group once again waited for the device to silence itself. This continued as each of the Torchwood members' phones rang in turn, and when the main line rang again.

The three Torchwood members, and Sarah Jane Smith, were sitting quietly on the couches and chairs in the hotel room. The handguns that Gwen had laid out earlier were now all in the hands of the three vampires and pointed straight at them.

Not that the vampires needed them. They were faster and stronger than the humans, and Lilith had brought her own- a standard-issue laser pistol stamped with the UNIT symbol and a date- 2134.

"So," said Mickey. He took a bite of his hamburger, which he had insisted on hanging on to. "Is there anything specific that you're here for, or…?"

Lilith didn't answer, and the occupants of the suite simply continued to sit in silence.

After twenty minutes of this, another cell phone rang. This time it was Lilith's- she simply listened to the voice on the other end, and then waved at one of the two other vampires in the room with them.

The Malsangurian, currently inhabiting the body of a tall black man, nodded and stepped out of the room. He returned a few minutes later with Asiman, and the vampire with the face of Mahmud Helou.

"Well?"

Asiman shrugged. "They got him."

Lilith nodded and sat down. "So what do we do now?"

The Helou-vampire spoke. "I think we've trusted Mr. Gabriel far enough. His orders are clear, but..."

"Completely unreasonable. You're right, Athead," Asiman said. He paused and looked at each of their hostages in turn. "This has gone far enough. We will wait until the Doctor arrives, and then we'll re-evaluate this whole situation."

Sarah Jane looked up at him. "What situation? What's going on?"

Asiman and Lilith looked at each other briefly. Although none of the human captives could tell, the two were actually having a brief psychic conversation.

_Do we tell them?_

_I don't see any harm in doing so._

_Maybe this is a bad idea. We know the Doctor's limits- Gabriel is completely unpredictable._

_And that's exactly why we're doing this._

… _Alright._

Lilith sighed and brushed a strand of vibrant red hair out of her face. "Gabriel gave us orders that, if he was captured, we are to kill each of you in turn until he is set free."

There was a brief silence, and the Gwen sputtered, "B-but that doesn't make any sense. If you kill us, then what's to stop him from killing Gabriel?"

"Because the Doctor would never do that." All heads turned to look at Martha. "He couldn't do that. And your Mr. Gabriel, he knows it, and he's using it to his advantage."

Asiman nodded. "When Gabriel first showed up, he seemed very interested in our… our plight, if you will. And it is an injustice," he raised a hand to stop Mickey's sudden protests. "You have to understand that we could overthrow you humans, of we wanted. It would be easy. One afternoon."

"Except for the Doctor," said Sarah Jane.

"Correct. Because of the Doctor. For some unfathomable reason or another, he has taken a shine to your people and your planet." He laughed. "Think about it. How many times over should your planet have been annihilated completely. How many times _would_ it have been, if not for the Doctor?"

"What's your point?" Gwen asked.

"My point is that, despite all of his grandstanding and his righteous talk, when it comes right down to it, he is oppressing us out of fear. Keeping us from the life we could be living because of _you._"

Lilith began speaking almost immediately after Asiman had finished. "And then an answer appears, out of nowhere. A man who is smarter than the Doctor, and without the ethical concerns holding us back, and he wants to help us. Maybe he did, in the beginning."

Athead interrupted. "He fooled us. He fooled us all. Everything he said, it just seemed… right, somehow. Good."

"But as time passed," Lilith continued, "He lost his aura of… well, there's really no other word for it- seductiveness. And he seemed less driven out of concern for us than from some sort of personal hatred for the Doctor."

Martha looked at each of the Malsangurians in turn. "So why are you doing this, then?"

Asiman shrugged, and sat down in one of the chairs. "The Doctor is our enemy, Martha Jones. I don't think you understand that."

"Let him help you," Sarah Jane pleaded. "Honestly. Nobody ever just lets him help, they have to do everything their own way…"

"Not when him helping us would involve killing some of _you_," Lilith snapped. "And it has to be that way. We need prey, sentient prey, and he forces us into this permanent fast because he loves you little humans so damned much. What about our family? Our children? They need to feed- we can't help the way we are!"

None of the humans had any answer to this. Martha gloomily reflected that there likely wasn't an answer.

"The point remains," Asiman said, "The Doctor is our enemy. And now it seems that Mr. Gabriel may be heading in that direction as well."

Mickey looked between Gwen, Martha, and Sarah Jane. When it became apparent that none of them were going to ask the question, he decided to do it. "So… what're you going to do?"

Asiman smiled widely, revealing the one aspect of his physical form that was truly inhuman. His teeth were razor-sharp and in that instant there was no mistaking him for a human being.

"It is fortunate," he said, "That both of our enemies happen to be enemies with each other, as well."

* * *

"_You two have to stay here. Keep him under twenty-four hour surveillance."_

"_Okay."_

"_I mean it. If one of you needs to go to the bathroom, get the other to cover. I don't know how long we'll be gone- might be more than one day. If that's the case, then Ianto, you sleep eight hours and Jenny, you sleep six."_

"_Guns?"_

"… _yes. Fine. Keep one with you. And Jenny, Ianto…"_

"_What?"_

"_If it comes down to it… kill him."_

"_Dad…"_

"_Just… if you have to. Protect your- protect your own lives."_

Certainly the scene had seemed momentous when Jack and the Doctor had left Torchwood Three that morning. But after half a day of nothing but sitting in front of the television monitors and watching Gabriel do nothing but sit quietly and occasionally scratch his nose, Jenny was wishing that she had gone with her father.

Ianto slumped over one of the computers. "I can't take this anymore. I'm going to go get something to eat." He stood. "You want anything?"

"What're you getting?"

"I dunno. Pizza, maybe."

"Grab a couple, we can put them in the fridge."

It was only when Ianto had left and Jenny had returned to staring at the screen that Jenny remembered that Gabriel had not eaten anything since at least the previous night. What did a… _thing_ like him eat anyways?

She grabbed her laser pistol and walked down to the holding cells, where he sat as serenely as any monk.

"Hey."

He looked up and smiled.

"Do you need to eat food? Or what? I mean…"

Gabriel laughed liltingly. "Found out what I am, huh? What I've done to myself?" His grin was now of Cheshire Cat-like proportions.

"I'll give you some pizza, then."

"Oh, no meat- I'm a vegetarian." His eyes were dead serious, the smile still on his lips was not.

"Go to hell."

She turned and was walking away when he shouted back at her. "It would be easy, you know."

"What would be easy?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "Putting an end to all of this. All you need to do is take that gun right there," he pointed, "And kill me."

She spared the weapon in her hand a moment's glance, and for a brief moment she understood why her father hated it so. "I suppose I could."

"Well, then, why don't you?"

Now she smiled. Gabriel might think that he was deviously brilliant, but every person had some aspect of predictability to them. "Because you told me to."

He blinked, and then giggled. "You're clever."

"Yes," she said, "I am."

He thought for a moment, looking her over appraisingly. "Of course, that goes without saying. They're _always_ clever. And now that I come to think of it… they're always _very_ pretty."

She fought to hold back a laugh. Was he trying to make her jealous? Of course, Gabriel had no idea that she was actually the Doctor's daughter- he simply thought she was another of his many companions. Instead of the reaction he was undoubtedly hoping for, she coyly asked, "So you think I'm pretty?"

Gabriel blinked confusedly, and then recovered himself. "Why… of course I do."

Jenny let her eyes meet his and… _there_. He was thinking subtly seductive thoughts and, had she been the human he thought she was, Jenny would have found herself oddly enamoured.

No way she was falling for this one. Hadn't she even used this trick herself, once? Still, she stepped closer.

"In fact…" His eyes remained on hers and his hand reached out towards her face. She was sure that in an instant, it would dip and snatch the laser pistol from hers. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that you weren't even human."

Oh, he was damned clever.

She stuck her face forward and matched his grin. "Why… you _are_ devious, aren't you. If _I_ knew better, I would say the same about you." She stepped closer.

"What are you, then?"

"I think I'll leave you a little mystery to solve. As payback, you see."

His expression darkened, all traces of charisma or seductiveness disappearing. His hand darted for the gun in her hand, and her fingers closed around his wrist.

In that split second before he registered what had happened, she gave his arm a sharp twist in a direction that it wasn't supposed to twist in.

Gabriel flailed backwards, snapping his arm away from her before she had a chance to break it. Still, there was no doubt that it had hurt, and the soldier in her was filled with a sort of savage satisfaction.

Instead of swearing or shouting, he smiled again, black eyes gleaming viciously. "You're next."

She didn't even blink. "We'll see."

* * *

The Doctor and Jack stepped into the hotel lobby, and made for the elevators directly across from the entrance.

The lobby was all but deserted- it was only eight-thirty. The girl behind the desk looked up as the two entered and looked right back down upon seeing the looks on their faces. When they had stepped into the elevator, she went to take a smoke break.

The doors closed with a soft _ding._

It galled the doctor to leave the only family he had known in centuries to guard a psychopath, but he had little choice in the matter. If Gabriel did have some trick up his sleeve (and the Doctor really wouldn't be surprised if he did), then their only hope would be outsmarting him- and only a Time Lord had any hope of doing that.

Jack flicked off the safety on his handgun. There had been far too many guns involved lately, but again they had no choice in the matter- the safety of the Doctor and his companions was more danger than it had been in years.

More danger than ever, really. In the past, no matter how bleak things had seemed, the Doctor had always had a plan, an escape route, one last way of coming out on top. Now… everything was shrouded in mystery, and the Doctor was finding more and more that he was unsure of what to do.

Jack bounced lightly on his feet as the elevator climbed. "So what's you're plan?"

"Two options: talk or shoot."

He nodded grimly. "So we're really up against the ropes on this one."

"I put them in danger," the Doctor said, "And I'll do what it takes to get them out of it."

"Think they're still here?" Jack asked. "They could have been moved."

The Doctor withdrew his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. "Even if they aren't, it's our best bet right now."

The doors opened with a soft _ding_. They stepped into the quiet hallway, the carpet muffling their footsteps, and walked softly to the door of Torchwood's suite. The Doctor unlocked the knob with the sonic screwdriver, and turned it quietly.

He held up his fingers. _One, two, three._

The door crashed open, and they charged into the room, Jack pointing his handgun and the Doctor pointing his sonic screwdriver. However, there was nobody inside to greet them, friendly or otherwise.

"…Were found murdered at the Helous' home earlier this morning. The whereabouts of the family, along with Mahmud Helou himself, are currently unknown. The London Police have stated that they are the prime suspects in the recent string of murders that has plagued the city, and have offered a ten-thousand pound reward for any information that leads to their capture. In a press conference earlier today…"

There was a television on somewhere inside the suite. After a few moments of standing there quietly, the Doctor and Jack advanced into the room. Save for the TV, it was completely silent.

"…that the betrayal of one of their own is a shocking affront to the London Police, especially considering the increasingly violent and elaborate nature of Mahmud Helou's plan, the exact details of which are still unknown. Consequently, all members of the force will undergo questioning concerning the recent spree of murders, since it is considered highly unlikely that Helou was able to act alone. The extent of his family's involvement, however, remains…

The room was not completely empty. There was a beautiful young woman with vibrant red hair seated on the couch in front of the television. She turned as the Doctor and Jack approached.

"…And widespread public unrest over the perceived lack of security, both among the police force and among the public. Coming up after the break, a team of Japanese scientists has reported finding evidence of what seems to be extraterrestrial involvement- beneath the Earth's surface! And, what has been the problem with Liverpool's offence? Has the coach's badmouthing of other teams 'cursed' the football club?"

She gestured for Jack to holster his gun and, after a nod from the Doctor, he did so.

"Hello, boys," said Lilith.

"…Going to talk about something most of us don't like to think about: life insurance. No, wait- hear me out. If you invest with Tri-Assurance, then you can be sure that you'll get your own 'Assurance' that your loved ones will be taken care of after you're gone. And there's no age or health qualifications- everybody is assured at Tri-Assurance! Simply pick up the phone…"

* * *

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that _nothing actually happened_ in this chapter. Don't worry about it-next one's a big one.


	7. Chapter 7

Shit just got real.

* * *

7

Your Move

_Gabriel: Huh. Heh. Haha._

_Doctor: What?_

_Gabriel: Here, Doctor. Another example of people dying because you refuse to compromise your beliefs._

_Doctor: What's your point? You keep going on and on and on about nothing, trying so very hard to get inside my head, but why? Why do you care? What do you want?_

_Gabriel: Haven't you figured it out yet?_

_Doctor: Maybe I have. But I want to hear you say it._

_Gabriel: Because now, Doctor, is you last chance. Would you let the only family you have die- because you went so far as to feel mercy for a psychopath?_

_Doctor: I don't know about mercy._

_Gabriel: Shut up. You shut up. No more talking. No more games- the games are over. If you're so stupid as to continue with your damn questions, trying to talk your way out of things… you only have one option left. You have no choice!_

_Doctor: I always have a choice, Gabriel._

_Gabriel: … hm. But what if all of your options end with death? What then?_

_Doctor: Don't do this, just-_

_Gabriel: No! no, it's far too late for that. I'm laying it on the line, plain and simple. There is no way out. One of us is going to have to die. And you are going to decide who it is. Will it be me? You? Or your daughter?_

* * *

By nightfall the next day, things had finally degenerated into a staring contest.

Jenny gazed blankly at the closed-circuit television screen while, on the other end of it, Gabriel stared with equal persistence into the camera.

Neither of them had blinked in the last five minutes.

"What could be taking Jack and the Doctor so long?" Ianto wondered aloud. "Do you think something could have happened?"

"If something did, we'll find out soon enough," Jenny said tersely. She preferred to never voice the worst out loud, and something happening to her father certainly fit within those parameters.

Ianto tapped his fingers impatiently against his knee, eyes flicking over at Jenny and the closed circuit screen. She continued to stare, eyes glazed slightly, looking not at the screen, but past it.

"Something's wrong," she said finally.

"What's wrong?" Ianto leaned over to see for himself, but Gabriel was as still as ever. "I don't see anything."

She clenched her eyelids shut, hands grasping her temples. "There's something… something important… and I just can't figure it out." Her hands drummed against her head.

_The object of the game is to obtain the name of your opponent._

_Gabriel is clearly a false name… but then again, so is Doctor. What do they mean…?_

Jenny's mind leapt from premise to theory to conclusion and back again, all at a speed faster than human comprehension. A sudden jolt of pain seared her vision-

"Ugh. Everything means something. What does it mean."

A Time Lord born of human technology- her mind simply wasn't biologically capable of sustaining the level of thought she needed.

Ianto lay a hand on her shoulder. "Jenny… are you okay?"

She swept her blond hair aside and looked up at him. "Don't worry about it. I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "It's just… I can sense that there's still something we don't know… and that everything hinges on that."

He looked her in the eye. "You really think that it's that important?"

Jenny sighed. "I know it's hard to explain, but… I dunno. It's like I can see everything that's happened and there's still some key aspect missing."

Ianto smiled. "Well, if it's that important, then take all the time you want."

She rubbed her head and jabbed a thumb at the screen. "What about him?"

"You've been doing all the work so far. I'll take down some food for him, and then take over the watch for a bit." He pulled half of a cold pizza out of the fridge and turned to leave. "Jenny…"

"Yeah?"

"I can feel it, too. That there's still one bit of this whole mess that's a mystery. But I'm nowhere near smart enough to figure it out. You are. And you can do it."

She smiled too, genuinely. "Thanks, Ianto."

He left, carrying the cold pizza down to the holding cells.

Jenny got out of the stiff chair in front of the monitoring screen and settled into a beat-up couch in the corner to think.

_He just appeared out of nowhere. An insane jumble of alien DNA melded into what was once a human being. What does he want?_

_And that damned game of his. All the planets and pieces renamed… predicting my father's moves…_

_…Malsangurians, werewolves, biological similarities…_

_And that strange… fit? Seizure? Gabriel seemed to be in actual, genuine pain, but just as quickly, it passed. What was that about?_

_He's orchestrating this whole series of events- murder in the middle of the night, public unrest, distrust amongst the authorities…_

_Ung._

_My mind… why can't I think?_

_Gabriel… he can think. Like nobody else… maybe not even the Doctor. No. There are similarities between then two of them, yes… but this will be decided on their differences, that much is clear._

_But how is he so damned smart? He used to be human, the DNA test made that much clear. And the mixture of alien DNA in him wouldn't account for that degree of intelligence. Nothing would._

_OW._

_And what about that psychic power? He's strong. Stronger than me, I guess. Down in the containing cell, he would have had me, easy, but only because he thought I was human…_

_Thought I was human._

_Knows I'm different._

_Psychic._

_Ianto._

_Ohgodmybrain._

_Ianto!_

Jenny sat bolt upright and stumbled of the couch, clutching her head. As soon as her vision was in focus, she looked at the screen showing Gabriel's cell.

Nothing but static.

_Oh no oh no oh no…_

She hurriedly flicked through the various security cameras throughout the institution. All of them were working, except for the four in the holding cell corridor.

_I wasn't thinking. I made a mistake. I wasn't thinking straight._

She sprinted out of the room, hoping desperately that she hadn't wasted too much time trying to be _clever_. Hoping that things still hadn't gone too badly wrong.

_He's the strongest psychic I've ever seen, including my dad, and Ianto's only human. Why didn't I think? Why was I so STUPID?_

Jenny skidded to a stop at the end of the cell corridor, and immediately knew that things had gone horribly, wretchedly, damnedly wrong.

_Oh God, this is all my fault- How could I DO this? I've killed us all._

Gabriel was standing calmly outside of his cell, his fingers casually looped through his belt loops. Ianto was slumped against the far wall of the corridor, his head bent at an odd angle and blood seeping slowly out of his ears.

In a sick sort of slow motion, Gabriel inclined his head so that his eyes locked onto hers, but forget his eyes- all the knowledge in the world was in that terrible smile of his, cheerful and boiling with rage and spread over half of his face.

_Did he do this?_

It was shortly after noon, and yet the streets of London were oddly silent. A great number of people had decided to simply stay in today, and the citizens that were outside were hushed, hurrying along and glancing suspiciously from side to side.

Oddly enough, the three people that were probably the most suspicious garnered next to no attention at all. This, of course, was because two of them were accomplished psychics, and their minds had long ago become used to constantly broadcasting that message; _Nothing to see here. Just look somewhere else. Completely normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Hey look at that shiny thingy over there._

Lilith wove her way through the sparse crowds, gliding silently along with her long hair flowing behind her. Jack and the Doctor followed close behind in equal silence, unsure but knowing that this was their only option.

They eyed the surrounding buildings and people warily. The Doctor's eyes flicked over everybody he saw, looking for anything the least bit human. He saw nothing- which was both good and bad, depending on how one looked at it.

He resisted the urge to probe Lilith's mind. She was a naturally powerful psychic, true, but he was sure that he would be able to break those barriers if he tried. There was just no reason for him to do so- he could find out where she was taking them and what she would do, sure, but he would find out eventually anyways.

"Here," she said simply. The Doctor looked across the street and spotted the same restaurant where he and Jenny had met Asiman and Lilith to negotiate, so many days ago. The _Talking Dog_, named as a joke by the canine alien owner.

Lilith led them across the street and into the restaurant, which was scarcely populated. Today, only a few of the tables in the main dining room were occupied, and the establishment was filled with the same eerie silence as the streets outside.

They brushed through the dining room and into the kitchen, past the few chefs currently at work, down a staircase, past a pantry, a freezer, and a wine cellar, down another set of stairs, and through a locked door.

Behind this locked door was another door, this one locked with a technology that any of the world's governments would be glad to have. The mechanism behind the door scanned the brains of Jack, the Doctor, and Lilith, and processed the information to make sure they were who they claimed to be.

That, of course, wasn't the problem. The door just wasn't programmed to let them in. A light above it flashed red, and a harsh buzzer sounded- like the kind on game shows when you get a question wrong.

Lilith cursed under her breath and pounded on the door with her fist.

There were muffled noises from behind it, and then a voice. "Who is it?"

"Goddamn it, you know who it is!"

There was a brief silence, and then the light flashed green, and the door slid open smoothly.

The distinctly dog-like owner of the restaurant ushered them inside, looking distinctly guilty when he saw the Doctor.

"Hello, Andrej."

He blinked meekly. "Hello, Doctor. I hope you will forgive me for all of this nonsense."

"Well, we'll see about that." The Doctor stepped passed Andrej and into the room beyond. It was, for all intents and purposes, a well-furnished apartment. "So what's all this about?"

Andrej looked at Lilith with his puppy-dog eyes (he knew how annoying it was). She sighed. "Bring them in, then."

He nodded, and left, bustling off to one of the other rooms in his underground home. Presently he came back, followed by Asiman and-

The Doctor launched himself at Sarah Jane and Martha, wrapping the two of them in a gangly laughing hug. They returned the hug warmly, laughing along with him, and to a lesser extent, at him.

Next to them a moment later, Jack embraced Mickey and Gwen, kissing the both of them in relief.

"I noticed that every time I say hello to you I always end up feeling strangely violated."

"I love you too, Mickey."

The Doctor looked all four of them over quickly. They seemed quite all right, uninjured and none the worse for wear. "So," he asked, "What happened?"

Sarah Jane shrugged apologetically. "They showed up outside my house one day, and demanded that I cooperate. Normally I wouldn't have, but… with Luke…"

"Don't worry. I understand. There was nothing you could have done." Dimly the Doctor thought of his daughter, and wondered to what lengths he was prepared to go for her. Hopefully he wouldn't have to find out.

'So then," Jack looked over the three aliens. "What _was_ all this about?"

"Simple," said Asiman. "We have had enough."

"It is obvious that Gabriel is only using us to further his own goals… whatever those might be." Lilith paused for a moment, and then looked pleadingly at the Doctor. "This has gotten out of hand and it will only get worse. We need your help."

The Doctor nodded and made a big show out of thinking it over. "Well… I dunno. Everybody gets one chance… Haven't you already used yours?"

Asiman glared. "Stop with the games, Doctor. We get enough of that from _him_."

He smiled and gestured for them to sit. "Well I'm afraid that you've already agreed to play. And so I will keep with the games, because I'm beginning to think they're the only chance we've got."

Andrej inclined his furred head quizzically. "I do not understand what you mean, Doctor."

He wasn't so sure he understood himself. "I think that it can be said that Gabriel has a plan for almost every possible eventuality. That includes the possibility of you betraying him."

"But he's locked up," Jack interjected. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean we shouldn't be acting as if we're on the defensive here?"

The Doctor turned to Asiman, Andrej, and Lilith. "How many of the aliens would back you in this decision?"

They exchanged glances between each other, mentally calculating. "I- I don't know," said Lilith finally. "You have to understand the hold that he has on them- on us. Nobody knows what he is, where he comes from, or what he wants, but… the whole act he puts on is so mesmerizing."

"He was able to sell us on his plan almost right away."

"That sounds like psychic persuasion to me," the Doctor noted. He thought back to his earlier conversations with Gabriel himself. It was true that he had sense a degree of power within his mind, but was it possible that the Doctor had underestimated him? "But you lot are a psychic race. He shouldn't have been able to get inside your heads that easily."

Asiman rubbed his head dolefully. "Now that I think about it… but I don't really remember…"

Martha leaned forward. "So you're saying that even if you lot betray him, he'll still have aliens on Earth who are loyal?"

Lilith nodded mutely. "That's not all."

The Doctor looked up. "What? What's not all? There's something else?"

"As time went on, we became more and more like accessories in his plan. Or, if you prefer- like pawns in his stupid chess game."

"You're worried that he's already figured out that you've betrayed him."

"Yes."

The Doctor stood and began pacing, occasionally running his hands through his hair and exhaling heavily. "What did he say to do if he was captured?"

Asiman waved a hand at the Doctor's companions. "He told us to kidnap as many of your friends as we could, and to kill them one by one until he was released. I… disagreed with this plan. It was too extreme. So Lilith and I decided to come to you."

The Doctor shot him a sceptic look. "Are my friends on a different standing than the rest of the human race?"

Mickey raised a hand. "I dunno. Are we?"

"No," said the Doctor.

"Yes," said Asiman.

"What," said the Doctor.

The Malsangurian shrugged. "A sentient being that has intelligence approximating that of races capable of interstellar travel is considered equal to us, in our view of things. That's why we choose to prey on lesser beings, such as the bulk of the human population."

The Doctor rubbed his temples and pointed his finger in Asiman's face. "There are so many things wrong with what you just said."

"Wait, wait, wait," Mickey held up a hand. "You're saying that we-" he gestured at himself, Martha, Gwen, and Sarah Jane- "Are smarter than the rest of the human population?"

"No," said the Doctor.

"Yes," said Asiman.

"No," said the Doctor

"Not sure who I'm rooting for here," said Gwen.

"Me," said the Doctor and Asiman.

Lilith stepped in between the two. "Listen, Doctor, do you accept that our species needs to prey on intelligent life forms to survive?"

After a long silence, the Doctor finally agreed: "Yes."

"Well, that's our condition for helping you." She folded her arms defiantly. "You will renegotiate the laws governing aliens on Earth- and they will be more tolerant of the fact that we must kill to survive."

The Doctor's fists clenched and unclenched. "Very well. First thing's first."

Asiman raised an eyebrow.

"We need to get back to Torchwood Three and imprison Gabriel in a more secure location." Although the truth was that the Doctor was beginning to think that there was no secure location for the madman.

"Very well," said Asiman. "I suppose that all of us should go? Trust me when I say that there is no such thing as overkill when dealing with Mr. Gabriel."

"I believe you." Jack stood purposefully and managed to elicit some menacing noises from his handgun. He looked pleased with himself. "Shall we then, Doctor?"

The entire group left the restaurant basement, Andrej donning a wide-brimmed hat and wrapping a scarf around his neck.

"I'm still not entirely sure what's going on," Sarah Jane said to nobody in particular.

"The TARDIS is outside the hotel, in an alley two blocks down. I'll explain on the way." The Doctor followed the aliens out to the parking lot, where several rather expensive cars were parked. "Do you think it likely that Gabriel knew you would do this?"

Asiman looked uneasy for a moment. "Well… I wouldn't put it past him…"

"Asiman."

The vampire looked him in the eyes. "I think we'd better drive fast."

* * *

"The Doctor may have several principles that I disagree with, but his core belief- well, no, his next-to-core belief is absolutely true."

Beads of sweat stung Jenny's eyes.

"It's all about how much you know."

She blinked, and suddenly he had moved.

"When you think about it… who really wins a fight? The person who knows the most about fighting, that's who."

Jenny blocked two of his blows and countered, aiming for his trachea and missing completely.

"For example, this fight won't be decided by who is physically stronger."

The sweat was in her eyes again, but she didn't dare break eye contact for the instant it would take to sweep it away.

"No. This fight depends entirely on which one of us is _smarter_. And that's the way it always is."

The style was _shotokan karate._ Techniques used are primarily open-handed strikes, knee and elbow blows, and the occasional grapples and throws. Jenny blocked several strikes and then launched her own retaliatory ones, all of which were effortlessly dodged or parried.

"The combatant who wins through brute force? Well, he knew enough to make himself strong. But the one who has a greater knowledge of combat, or of fighting styles- can he not take down the strongest of men, those who use nothing but their strength?"

Fluidly, the technique changed to bare-knuckle boxing, with both Jenny and Gabriel bouncing lightly on their feet and throwing rapid combinations of punches- alternating precision accuracy with overwhelming power.

Jenny jabbed twice with her right and uppercut with her left- all three strikes missed. She saw Gabriel throw a punch aimed for her temple and ducked, countering with a haymaker to his jaw. He rolled with the punch and spun with deceptive quickness, bringing a sharp right hook into her ribs.

"Unhn." She stepped back and clutched her side- the wound wasn't bad. Regenerative energy soon took care of it, but she was getting tired far too quickly.

Gabriel chuckled darkly. "Unusual that one of the Doctor's companions would know how to fight so well."

"Oh, I'm just full of surprises." Jenny leapt forward, and then stopped, staggering suddenly. Gabriel overcompensated for the movement that had suddenly been halted, and Jenny used the distraction to deliver a devastating kick to his knees.

Gabriel crashed to the ground and rolled past Jenny's next kick, which would have broken his neck. They stood and, for a brief while, the two of them feinted and staggered and careened about in the unconventional _zui quan_ combat style.

This evolved smoothly into the full-out sprint of the Lothar monk's running combat technique. The two of them dashed headlong through the Torchwood Institute, crashing together and apart in a blindingly fast series of blows.

Gabriel came to a sharp stop ahead of her and threw an elbow at Jenny's face. She dropped and slid underneath the blow, spinning around to aim a high kick at his spine. He whirled and caught the blow, tossing her leg back and flipping her over as he leapt and brought his own foot down towards Jenny's face.

She continued with the momentum lent to her and flipped again, and Gabriel's foot snapped down on the floor with a menacing _thud._ The two began alternating fluid blows in the artistic _Do-An-Shu-Pex_ method preferred along the Outer Rim of the Andromeda Galaxy.

"Definitely not human, then."

"Look who's talking."

Stylized postmodern _Ninjutsu_. Popularized by martial artists in the thirty-second century, it focused more on creative, distracting, and occasionally offensive fighting techniques. Gabriel caught two of Jenny's blows in succession, and then clenched her hands in his, forcibly waltzing her around the room. When she attempted to bring her knee up into his crotch, he spun aside, darted forwards, and kissed her on the lips. In that brief moment where she was paralyzed by pure shock, he headbutted her in the face.

!shyxza 53. An anarchic, disjointed combat technique based primarily on focused emotions, it remained unpopular due to its unpronounceable name. Jenny rolled backwards and then catapulted forwards, focusing her sudden rage on a series of quick, savage blows that Gabriel barely managed to shrug off. When two punches caught him in the stomach, he tackled her headlong and threw them both into the floor.

Close-quarters overkill. Simply named, the rather brutal technique speaks for itself. Often, two fighters will find themselves literally on top of each other, and in that case the only usable tactics are quick, powerful jabs and elbows. Both Jenny and Gabriel threw as many punches as possible, hoping to inflict as much damage as they could. Eventually, they staggered to their feet and threw themselves at each other again.

Good old-fashioned hockey fights. With one hand clutching the other's collar and the other hand throwing wild haymakers, the two spun back and forth, pummelling each other brutally. Had either of them been human, the sheer amount of blunt trauma would have long ago resulted in massive internal bleeding- but they are not human, and they fight on.

Jenny landed a punch on Gabriel's jaw. He reeled, and then threw an elbow into her stomach, propelling her backwards. When he followed through, she brought her leg up into his chest and knocked him over. The two parted for a moment, eyeing each other warily and struggling to regain their breath.

"You fight like you enjoy it." Gabriel laughed hoarsely and wiped spittle and blood from his chin. "Who or what are you, that the Doctor would consent to have someone so violent travel with him?"

They began to circle each other. "You tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine."

Jenny felt a psychic push on her mind, almost like her thoughts were a book with the pages stuck together. She repelled the advance, and caught a glimpse of Gabriel's own mind as she did so. It was an impenetrable mass of twisted perceptions and incomprehensible plans.

"You're psychic, too… powerful. More powerful than that vampire lot. And believe it or not, that's something." Gabriel stopped, and then darted forward. Jenny was barely able to block his strange style of lightning-fast jabs and kicks, narrowly avoiding a horizontal chop aimed at her throat. "_You_ are something. You're something very, very special."

"Am I? How flattering." Jenny took quick stock of the situation. For the first time in her life, she was in very serious danger of losing a fight. Normally, her soldier's instinct, comprehensive knowledge of combat, and advanced Time Lord biology ensured that she far outclassed any competition. However, it now seemed that she had lost all of these advantages. "You definitely know how to make a girl feel appreciated."

Gabriel shook the sweat out of his tangled dark hair. "You know far too much… Jenny, was it? Yes. I'd say that you're clearly beyond the level of the rest of the Doctor's gang."

"This going somewhere? 'Cause if not, I'd really like to get back to kicking your ass."

He smiled. "Well now, I didn't say you were _that_ smart." His gaze turned cold. "But you're close. Right now, if you asked me to ballpark it… it's likely there are only two people in the entire Universe who are smarter than you are."

Jenny rolled her eyes. "Lemme guess. The Doctor, and-"

"Myself. In that order." Jenny dimly saw Gabriel shift his footing to a stance she had never seen before, and he lowered his hands to his sides.

"Right, then. Listen. If you still think that-"

Gabriel hooked his foot around the back of her calf, tripped her, and then kneed her in the back of the head as she fell. The maneuver had been executed with impossible speed and was deceptively casual.

She vaulted to her feet and tried to defend herself, but Gabriel fought with a technique that was not only completely unknown to her, but was also like anything she had ever seen before.

Blinding speed alternated with misleading slowness. Gabriel stood stock still, and was suddenly behind her, motionless again until she turned and then bursting into movement to catch her off balance and strike at her abdomen.

Gabriel bent and grabbed a fistful of her hair, hauling her head up so that she faced him. "You have principles. The Doctor has principles. I have none."

She jerked her head forward and out of his grasp, but in a flash he had flipped her over and smashed her face into the floor. Blood ran from her nose and mouth and, for the first time, she found that the ever-present regeneration energy was overwhelming, and painful. She struggled to suppress it.

"There are always boundaries, Jenny. There are always limits. And I will find yours. And I will find his."

The kick to her ribs was sharp enough that she was actually lifted off the ground for a moment.

"How far? How much does he need to hate me before he is willing to violate his most deeply held belief?"

Jenny tried to get up, and fell. The power within her surged, and then subsided, leaving her filled with the strangest sort of pain.

"Because killing him isn't enough. It's not even an option. No. I'm sure you understand why, because, after all… you're brilliant."

The next strike was the last one, she knew, because it was a pinpoint blow. Right where the base of her skull met the spine. Unconsciousness was immediate, and Jenny's head hit the floor dully.

"And there really is no greater pleasure than in proving your point."

Gabriel began whistling a jaunty tune and sifted through the jumbled mess that was now Torchwood Three. He found his confiscated collection of weapons, which he took, and some energy drinks in the fridge.

Cracking one of the Red Bulls open, he collapsed in a chair set in front of one of the computer panels. Within a few minutes he had wiped all the security footage of the past two days.

He then went back down to the holding cells and stuck a Post-It to the forehead of Ianto Jones. On it was a note for the Doctor.

Finally, he hauled up Jenny's unconscious form and slung her unceremoniously over his shoulder. He left Torchwood Three through the invisible elevator and walked across Roald Dahl Plass in broad daylight. Nobody saw him, not really, and a woman who later reported her car stolen had absolutely no recollection of handing the keys to an oddly hypnotic man stained with blood, dressed in black, and carrying an unconscious young woman slung over his back.

* * *

The TARDIS materialized directly inside Torchwood, this time. The door flew open and the Doctor and Jack sprinted out.

"Jenny! Ianto!" Nobody answered. The Doctor could smell sweat and blood in the air. "They're gone." He kicked a wastepaper basket across the room. "They're _gone_!"

"All of the surveillance records have been wiped." Jack smacked the computer in frustration. "Damn it! What happened?"

Asiman stepped out of the TARDIS after them. Lilith, Mickey, Gwen, Andrej and Martha were at the hotel, just in case Gabriel had left a trap for the Doctor to walk into.

"He was in the holding cells down below. Let's check there first." The Doctor beckoned, and Jack and Asiman followed. They walked carefully throughout the errily silent facility- drops of blood stained the floor in several places, and there were signs of a physical struggle everywhere.

"You haven't seen him fight, Doctor." Asiman shook his head. "And he was up against two humans. I'm sorry- they didn't stand a chance."

"Oh, I don't know about that." The Doctor smiled humourlessly. "I think that Jenny probably gave him a bit of a surprise."

"Nonetheless," Asiman said. "They are both dead."

Jack looked like he was about to retort, but then they rounded the corner and saw what was at the end of the cell corridor. His eyes widened, and for a moment he didn't move. "Ianto."

"Jack. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

At first glance, it looked like he was resting against the concrete wall. His eyes were closed and he was leaning back with his arms at his sides.

Jack solemnly bent down and wrapped his arms around Ianto's pale form. The hair at the back of his head was matted and red, and dried blood streamed down his back and shoulders.

"Ianto…" Jack struggled for words but found none.

The Doctor lay a hand on his shoulder. "This is my fault."

"No. It's not."

For a moment all three of them stood there, frozen in time. Jack clutching Ianto to his chest, the Doctor with a hand on his shoulder, and Asiman watching the two of them, unsure of what to do or how to feel.

Then Jack silently picked up Ianto, and carried him out of the quiet hallway spattered with blood. As he did so, the Doctor noticed a yellow piece of paper on the ground.

He picked it up. It said simply: I MOVE THE DALEK ON MALCASSARIO TO TAKE LOGOPOLIS. YOUR MOVE, DOCTOR.

Of course. The last move in the game had been the Doctor's, and now Gabriel had made his. And the last statement- "Your move." Gabriel held the advantage, and it was now the Doctor's turn to act. Only he didn't have the faintest idea what to do.

Jack brought Ianto back to the TARDIS, where they lay him on a bed and the Doctor did his best to clean him up. He scrubbed the blood and sweat from the cold face, sweeping the tangled hair back and switching his wrinkled and bloodstained shirt for a fresh one.

Jack broke the quiet, finally. "Doctor."

"Yes."

"In all your travels, have you ever met a person who honestly deserved to die?"

He thought about his answer for a long while. "I don't know."

"What do you mean by that?"

And it came to him so very easily now, the answer to that question that he had never spoken aloud and had agonized over for so many centuries. "I have met people who I personally felt deserved death, and who I believed the universe would be a better place without, but… no. No, I do not think that anybody I have met deserves death."

It was Asiman who questioned him next. "But if you could save lives by ending one…? Why, Doctor, do you say that when even your friends die around you because of this belief?"

Tears were wending their way down his face now, and he desperately hoped that they would understand. "Because it's not our place to decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die. And if I killed somebody based on my own judgment that their death would be a good thing… well… that would be the same as claiming to be God."

"Well, aren't you closer than any one of us? If no God will judge the wicked, then why can't you, Doctor, the most Godlike out of all of us, make that judgment for him?" Asiman's eyes shone with a wretched sort of earnestness. "Think of the good you could do, Doctor… you could take God's place."

Jack echoed Asiman with almost a longing cynicism. "You could do it, Doctor. You could become a God… a vengeful God… and none of this would ever have to happen again."

The Doctor was weeping now because he knew that more people would die because of him, and of the responsibility that he could take but refused to. "Please. Can't you understand? I don't want to."

* * *

Killing off a canon character is always a tough thing to do. You can go ahead and create as many of your own characters as you want, and drop bridges as many of them as you want- but people read fan works because they like the source material, and killing a character from the source material can have a far greater impact on readers (and other characters!) than having one of your own characters killed.

This is one of the most important chapters in the story, because it represents a climax of sorts for many of the characters. Also, it is at this point that several events are put in motion, and several wheels begin turning that bring this story to its now-inevitable end.

If you have any thoughts, comments or criticisms, I'd love to hear them in a review.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

The last chapter was the top of a big hill. Now this thing is starting to roll ever so slowly down that hill until it picks up more and more momentum and comes to one hell of a finish.

Seriously, I will be genuinely impressed if anyone can guess how this one ends.

* * *

8

What's Impossible?

_Think  
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices  
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues  
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.  
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree._

_-T.S. Eliot, 'Poems.'_

* * *

"So what happened?"

Gabriel sifted through the refrigerator, not really paying attention to Asiman and Lilith at all. "Eh. Not much. They locked me up, I busted out, killed whatsisface and kidnapped the Doctor's sidekick."

Lilith was cradling her youngest daughter Elizabeth in her arms. "What do you plan on doing with her?"

He swung the refrigerator door shut and began going through the cupboards. "Not sure yet. I suppose first thing's first, though… I have to figure out what her big secret is. I've got a bunch of diagnostic equipment lying around, I figure I can fiddle with that a bit and come up with- oh, barbeque!" He opened the bag of Lays and stuffed a handful unto his mouth. "Sho what happ' to you guysh?"

"The Doctor."

"Reshcued all of hish frien' I shuppose?" He swallowed and opened the fridge again. "Wouldn't put it past him. How'd he do it?"

"He took out the hotel's power," Lilith said, "and then somehow managed to run enough through all the lights to pop them."

Gabriel opened a Coke. "Aha. Sudden change from really dark to really bright. And with your enhanced eyesight…"

"We were blinded."

"Preying on biological weaknesses… Clever. Of course." Gabriel left the kitchen and Asiman and Lilith followed him through the corridors of the Malsangurian's underground installation, built beneath a grouping of warehouses at the side of the Thames.

The complex was well-furnished. Thick red carpeting, comfortable furniture, and paintings on the wall all made the place feel very much like home. However, the vampires found that they were disliking it more and more ever since Gabriel had arrived and made it his base of operations.

"Hang on," said Asiman. "What do you mean, 'figure out her big secret?'"

"Oh, didn't you know? Jenny isn't human. In fact, she's a psychic being almost as smart as I am myself."

"Really?" Asiman frowned. "When we spoke with the Doctor, he never mentioned anything of the sort."

"Why would he? Clearly Jenny's actual identity is something very important, or he wouldn't keep her around." As he spoke, Gabriel opened a medical supply closet and began rooting around. "Violent girl like her? Nah, she's not the Doctor's type." He pocketed a hypodermic syringe and a handful of other supplies.

Asiman was interested now. "The Doctor's hiding something, then. Perhaps we can use whatever it is against him?"

Gabriel smiled happily. "Oh, no doubt about it. So, then. Shall we?"

He opened the door to his own private rooms, and Asiman and Lilith followed him inside.

The lights were off. The underground room would have been pitch-black if not for the glow of numerous television and computer screens, mounted on the walls and placed on top of desks and tables. Each one showed something different- one was BBC, another CNN, another was ISNN (InterStellar News Network). There were electronic articles on the sudden upswing in crowd violence in central London and the past alien occurrences involving the city, profiles on the mysterious figure called 'The Doctor,' and the officially nonexistent agency Torchwood. There were screens written in languages that even the Malsangurians couldn't understand, and complex maps and readouts of seemingly useless data. Several of the screens were showing sports matches, playing through lists of videos on YouTube, or broadcasting films and television shows.

The immediate impression of the room was of a deluge of information.

And sleeping silently on a bed in the corner was Jenny herself- strangely, she looked none the worse for wear after the beating she had taken. It showed on her clothing, though, which was stained with dirt and blood.

"Weird, isn't it?" Gabriel jabbed the needle into her arm, and withdrew a small amount of blood. "A psychic humanoid with advanced mental and regenerative capacities. All three of those qualities can be said to be somewhat common, but all three present in one species? That's nearly unheard of- Hell, I can only think of one that fits the bill."

Lilith was still holding her child, looking down at Elizabeth absentmindedly. "And what's that?"

Gabriel picked up some strange instrument from a nearby desk. It seemed to be held together mostly with duct tape and tangles of wiring; he flicked a switch on its side and a blue light streamed out of one end. "Well, what species did you think the Doctor was? He's not a human, I'll tell you that much."

She looked up sharply. "You know what species the Doctor is?"

He smiled devilishly.

"There are so many legends about him… or it, maybe." Asiman said. "I know many people who believe that he isn't a part of this universe at all. That he's a being from a higher plane of existence who's been exiled to our world."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "And do you believe those legends?"

Asiman thought for a brief while. "I don't know."

"They're closer than you think." He held the blue glowing machine over Jenny's body, and moved the stream of blue light from her head to her toes. He then plugged the machine into what appeared to be five computers mashed together haphazardly.

He punched several keys. "That's got us a basic scan of her physiology… but damn, I wish I had some better equipment. Had to build all this stuff myself. As you can probably see."

"So what species is the Doctor?" asked Lilith.

Gabriel picked up another syringe, this one already filled with some drug. "That's a secret."

"Secret?"

"Secret."

"You don't know, do you?"

"Not as such, no."

Lilith scowled. "You're an ass."

"Aren't I just?" He injected the needle straight into Jenny's neck and, after a few seconds, she awoke with a start.

"What the-? Where am…? You!" She sat up and made to lunge at Gabriel, but stopped when he drew one of the swords that were once again strapped to the small of his back.

"Ah, ah, ah. Watch it."

Leaning back, she looked around the dark room. "Asiman. Lilith. And… who is that?" She pointed at the child in Lilith's arms.

Lilith beamed. "This is our youngest daughter, Elizabeth."

Jenny's eyes narrowed. "That baby that went missing. You killed her."

She shrugged. "There is only one way for our species to breed, Jenny."

Jenny said nothing else to her, but instead turned to Gabriel. "What do you want?"

"Me?" He drummed his fingers idly against his desktop. "I want the results of the scan I performed on you to load a bit faster, so I can find out just what you're hiding from me."

There was a chime, and then streams of data appeared on the screens in front of Gabriel. He turned to look at them, clicking through several pages.

"Well?" said Asiman.

"Gimme a second, gimme a second. Let's see here…" Gabriel brought up a complex analysis of the inner workings of Jenny's body. This came not in the form of a diagram, but of several charts, percentages, and lines of text. He began to read through it.

"Dramatically increased muscle density… moderately faster and more efficient metabolism… brain capacity far beyond almost every species in existence… tolerance for extreme temperatures, pain, and physical or mental stress… and…"

His eyes widened and he leapt at the keyboard, calling up further diagrams. "No. This… this can't be… this isn't possible… this is…"

The two Malsagurians moved to see what Gabriel was looking at, but the results of the scan were completely incomprehensible to them. "What?" Asiman pressed. "What's impossible? What is she?"

Jenny merely sighed and lay back down.

"The scan shows the presence of several organs that don't actually exist in any recorded medical database." Gabriel swallowed nervously. "For example. This one here-" he pointed, "Is used for collecting and storing pure energy, which this organ here processes. The energy is then used by _this_ thingy to restore bodily function to tissues that shut down, either through disease or injury or whatever… But this is impossible."

"You just explained that impossibility fairly well," Lilith noted.

He shook his head. "You misunderstand me. This is impossible for entirely different reasons. And that reason is…" He clicked again, and this time a diagram of Jenny's circulatory system filled the screen. "She's not supposed to exist."

"Is this thing right?" Asiman leaned closer and poked the screen. "From the looks of this, she's got two hearts."

Gabriel was silent for a moment. Then he drew one of the two swords again and beckoned with it to Jenny. "Stand up. Come over here."

Reluctantly, Jenny stood and walked over to where Gabriel was. He laid the blade of the sword against the hollow of her throat, and delicately used his free hand to feel each of the two hearts beating beneath her chest.

"She's the real deal, alright." He stepped back and looked her up and down. "And here I thought that you were only a legend."

"A legend?" Asiman's curiosity was piqued.

"I'm sure you've heard them- almost every civilization has the story in one form or another. An all-knowing, immortal race of beings that travels all through time and space, capable of resurrecting themselves from death itself- and with two hearts beating inside of them." Jenny sat down again and he sheathed the sword. "And she seems to fit the bill perfectly."

"I suppose it makes sense for the Doctor to hide her identity from us, then." Lilith smiled a cold smile indeed. "If one of our kind were to possess such a body…"

"What the blood must taste like…" mused Asiman.

Jenny smirked and craned her neck. "Go on," she said, "Have a taste. See what it does to ya."

Gabriel continued to read through the data on the screen. "I wouldn't. Bleeding her that much would render the regenerative organ unstable," he pointed out. "It would release all of the stored energy at once, completely overwhelming her body and frying your little vampire brains out at the same time."

"So, bad idea," Lilith concluded.

"Bad idea," confirmed Asiman.

"Well, this is interesting." To Jenny's chagrin, Gabriel began withdrawing several ominous looking medical and electronic instruments from various corners of the room. "A completely new species! With this knowledge, think of the advantage we now have over the Doctor and his companions."

Asiman did think. Long and hard. "Right, this is all way too far over my head. Make sure you let us know what you discover, I'm going to go now and check on my family. Lilith?"

Sensing her husband's intent, Lilith nodded. "Oh, of course. Shall we, then?"

The Malsangurians left the room whilst Gabriel busied himself with his diagnostic equipment and Jenny waited warily. But as soon as the door slid shut behind them, Gabriel dropped what he was doing and sat down in an office chair.

He swivelled to face her, face glowing and chuckling quietly. Again, he somehow managed to be more frightening while he was cheerful than when he was threatening her.

"So. No wonder he keeps you around."

Jenny rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Me being a living legend and all, who wouldn't want me hanging out with them?"

"What's your name?" asked Gabriel. "Who are you?"

"I'm Jenny."

He shook his head. "No, no, no. What's your _name_?"

She blinked. "Jenny."

Gabriel leaned forward. "Romana?"

"What's a Romana?"

"No, no… doesn't fit…" He tapped his fingers against the side of his skull, thinking. "Are you… the Rani? No… that doesn't fit, either."

Jenny was genuinely confused, something that did not happen often. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You are a Time Lord," Gabriel stated flatly. "The Doctor has somehow found another of his own kind."

And now she was genuinely surprised. That didn't happen too often, either. "You know about the Time Lords? About the Doctor?"

Gabriel gave an odd little gesture, as if to say _what did you expect?_ "I know a great many things, dear Jenny, and I daresay quite a bit more than you. And considering what you really are, that's quite an achievement."

He stood and began shuffling around the instruments laid out on his desk again. "And if you won't tell me who you are, I have ways of finding out." He held up a small syringe filled with blood.

"Am I correct in assuming that is my blood?"

"Indeed, you are correct." Gabriel poured a small sample of the blood into what Jenny recognized as a DNA reader similar to the one her father had used to analyze Gabriel's own blood.

Immediately, a representation of the familiar triple-helix DNA was called up to the computer screen. "Yep," Gabriel said. "Time Lord. But what's this…?"

He tapped a few keys, and another segment of DNA was shown, this one with clear imperfections. In places, the triple helix broke down and became the double helix that was the standard for almost every other life form in the universe.

"You're not a pure Time Lord. Part of your DNA is… human." He turned to look Jenny over again. "Now if I can figure out… hmm… aha, I recognize this pattern."

Jenny sighed. Really, she and the Doctor had already gone over all of this themselves, and it was inevitable that someone of Gabriel's intelligence would come to the conclusion-

"Military cloning technology!" he snapped. "Standard issue progenation machines! But that would make you... his daughter."

"In the broadest sense of the word," Jenny clarified.

"Well, this explains a bit. Those military cloning machines contain bits of preset DNA that goes into every subject. It ensures that the clones have optimal intelligence, physical ability… whatever trait it is that they want the clones to have. I'm sure you can see the downside to this."

Jenny could. "They can only clone one species. In my case… human. So when a nonhuman subject is cloned, the resulting offspring will have bits of human DNA. Basically, I'm part human."

"You're taking it rather well," Gabriel observed. "Most people wouldn't be very open to the idea of being a half…. Whatever. Especially if the half they're giving up is a living god."

"You're one to talk," said Jenny. "How many species have you spliced into your own genes? How many times have you cut yourself open and made yourself into something new?"

Gabriel cackled. "Oh, I like you! I like you a lot. Just like your dear old dad… but maybe… with fewer inhibitions?" He drew one of his swords and, with a flourish, handed it to her hilt-first. "Go on. Take it."

Hesitantly, she took the blade and hefted it, eying him suspiciously.

"So. What do you think?"

Jenny examined it quickly. She had never seen a sword like it, although it had distinct similarities to several that she had seen. "The curve of the blade is similar to the Japanese _katana_, but the length and grip are more reminiscent of the French _rapier._ She gave the blade an experimental swing. "The weighting is something different. I'd say it's almost like the swords that the Sontarans use in ritual combat."

"Right you are!" He drew the second of the two blades and ran his finger along the metal lovingly. "And made of a nearly indestructible dalekanium alloy. I designed them to be the perfect duelling swords."

Jenny picked up on the hint on his sentence. "That means you intend on duelling somebody with them."

"You think your dad only knows about aliens and books and which restaurants to eat at?" He twirled the blade artfully. "No. He knows more about death than you ever will."

"So you're going to challenge my dad to a duel to the death?" Jenny sighed. "Goddamnit. You don't _understand._ You think-"

The point of his sword was suddenly pressed against the flesh underneath her chin. She felt the blade break the skin, and the slight tingle as the regeneration energy healed the small wound.

"Don't you tell me what I do and do not understand." His snapped the blade back. "Your father is quite possibly the single most powerful being in the Universe. Once, a long time ago, he wielded the full extent of this power- he wiped entire civilizations from existence."

Jenny opened her mouth to protest, but shut it again when she saw the strange look in Gabriel's dark eyes.

"Now he has become but a shadow of his former self. A pathetic do-gooder who operates on some foolish set of principles, when he has the ability, even the _right_ to bring vengeance down upon those he deems unfit to live."

"But he doesn't," said Jenny.

"But he can't," said Gabriel. "He can't bring himself to wield that power again, to raise himself above everybody else. And I am here to either force him to pass judgment once again… that, or kill him because of it."

"What do you want?" Jenny hissed.

Gabriel turned to the many television and computer screens lining the walls of the room.

Jenny lunged forward as soon as his back was to her, bringing the duelling sword up in a stab aimed at the small of his back. Without looking, Gabriel brought his own sword up and caught her blade on his, spinning deftly and raising her arms up so that the two swords locked together.

"What were you going to do? Kill me?"

She smirked. "Maybe."

Gabriel was silent for a moment, and then pushed forward and drew back, twirling the blade in his hand so that Jenny's flew out of hers. He caught it deftly.

"You asked me what it was I wanted," he said, flicking a switch.

Immediately, the screens were filled with news channels, newspaper headlines, and footage from surveillance cameras throughout the city.

NINE LONDONERS MURDERED OVERNIGHT, one headline screamed. POLICE INVESTIGATE LINKS BETWEEN DEATHS, it said beneath. There were other papers with POLICE OFFICER MAHMUD HELOU TOP SUSPECT IN MURDER SPREE, and FIVE COPS KILLED IN HELOU'S HOME, FAMILY MISSING at the top of the pages.

At the same time, the news broadcasts blared. "The revelation of a possible criminal conspiracy deep within London's police force have inspired widespread distrust of the law, from both within and without. The department is currently launching investigations on several of its officers known to have been close to Helou, a move which many are saying undermines public confidence in law enforcement. Several of the officers have refused to submit to these investigations…"

"…Say that the murders are far too similar to have been coincidental, or even committed by amateurs. All the clues point to the perpetrators having some sort of military or espionage training, and possible connections within the police force itself. London police, however, are _not_ investigating the killing spree, according to the chief of police, they have turned the investigation over to a higher branch of the governmentm although they are apparently not at liberty to say which…"

"…deaths of the five officers who were to take Mahmud Helou's family into custody. This 'atrocity,' as it has been dubbed, is not likely to end soon, as Helou himself, along with his closest family members, are still at large. Police have issued a monetary reward for any information leading to their capture, and are performing a citywide manhunt in search of…"

"…incidents of violence. His second cousin as well as his aunt's family have been targeted by public violence, by those claiming that the victims know where the Helous are hiding. Police have taken members of his extended family into protective custody…"

"…Seized control of the investigation. As for the government organization 'Torchwood,' no official record can be found to exist, although several law enforcement officials and representatives of the government itself have stated that they were aware of the existence of the Institute. The exact nature of Torchwood's work has yet to be determined…"

"Riots after two of the police officers under investigation refused to submit to questioning and attempted to walk out of the station. Angry members of the mob outside targeted the officers…"

The security camera footage showed pictures of press conferences, members of Helou's family being attacked by members of the public, and of riots outside of the police station downtown. As Jenny watched, a woman fell and was trampled underfoot, and several members of the mob threw bricks at the officers attempting to restore order.

"Like dominoes falling down," Gabriel said, eyes sparkling. "This, Jenny. _This_ is what I want."

* * *

The Time Lords in general, and the Doctor in particular, had never thought much for the traditional paying of respects to the corpse of a dead person.

Perhaps it was because the of the fact that they inhabited several bodies over the course of a lifetime, or because the average Time Lord had died multiple times, or because of the mental and nonmaterial nature of their culture, but the traditional funeral of a Time Lord in no way involved the body of the deceased, which was often discreetly disposed of after the fact.

After mourning their passing, the Doctor had personally set fire to the Master's body and left it to burn, and had left what he thought was Jenny's corpse to the human and Hath factions on Messaline- something she had endlessly berated him for.

But Ianto Jones was not a Time Lord, he was a human being- and as such, Jack had requested that Ianto be given the same honorary funeral as the time agents from the 51st century.

Jack recited the ceremony mostly from memory- the Doctor briefly wondered how many times Jack had seen one of his friends die, and thought sadly that he would inevitably see many more.

When the words had been said and respects had been paid, Jack closed the lid on Ianto's carbon-fiber casket and pushed it out of the TARDIS doors, setting it in a slow orbit around the Earth's sun.

"It's tradition among the Time Agents," Jack said to nobody in particular, "To put those who fall in the line of duty in orbit around the star of the system where they died, to protect it until time consumes even the sun itself."

"Jack," the Doctor spoke quietly enough that the others couldn't hear him. "Are you okay with this?"

Jack understood what the Doctor was really talking about. "Yeah."

"If you need my help… If you want to die…"

He smiled weakly. "I thought that you didn't do things like that."

The Doctor thought for a moment. "Would I compromise my beliefs for scum like him? No. But for my friends… I would think about it."

Jack nodded, and then turned and spoke loudly to the room at large. "We need beers! A drink, in Ianto's memory!"

"Now that's a bit more like the 'traditional funerals' I'm used to." Mickey leapt down from where he was seated on the TARDIS' main console. "Ianto woulda wanted us to get the bastard who got him! After a round, of course."

"'S funny," Gwen said. "I can picture him saying exactly that."

Only Martha remained silent, seemingly deep in thought.

"Tell you what, Jack," the Doctor said, "You can have a drink on me. Remember Arcturus Breweries?"

Jack laughed. "Ah, good old Arc. I grew up on that stuff."

"You lot go down to my wine cellar, and I've got a couple cases there. Bring 'em back up, and we'll have a drink."

He smiled genuinely, now. "Thanks, Doc." He went to leave, but then caught himself, came back, and wrapped the Doctor in a bear hug.

"I love you too, Jack. Now go on, get us some drinks."

Gwen and Mickey left with Jack, but Martha stayed behind, still sitting quietly.

"What is it? You don't want a drink?"

"It's hard for you," she said. "Knowing that she's in danger."

He had been about to close the doors of the TARDIS but stopped, looking out at the sun, the stars, and the tiny speck that was the Earth. "Yes."

Martha stood up and crossed the room to stand with him and look out at the cold beauty. "She's the only family you have. You might say that we count, but we don't. Not really."

He remained silent. She turned to look at him.

"Remember how you felt when you found out that you weren't the last of your kind? That the Master had survived all these years, as well? And do you remember how you felt when you weren't able to save him from himself?"

When the Doctor spoke, his voice was even and calm, but there was a layer of emotion there somehow that betrayed him. "I thought that Jenny had died once before. I was angry… _so_ angry. And that scared me. I came so close to killing that man, I really did… Martha…"

"It'll be okay," she said.

"But… what if I lose her again?" He turned to look at her now.

"You have to ask yourself. What version of her father does she want to save her? Yes, you could kill them all, Doctor. But at the same time, no, you couldn't."

The Doctor nodded, and then smiled. "Not too often you can get away with giving me advice, is it?"

"Don't think that I don't relish the opportunity." She leaned forward and wrapped him in her own embrace, which the Doctor returned gladly. "This makes up for the hundred or so times you've helped me out, I guess."

"Well, there was that one time you gave me a hand before, so… I guess I owe you."

"I'll just pop off and find some mortal danger to put myself in, then."

Just then, Mickey bounded back into the main console room, carrying half of a six-pack of Arc Ale. He pressed two of the cans into the Doctor's and Martha's hands, and opened the third for himself.

"What," he marvelled, "Do they make this out of?"

"Arcturus Breweries is knows for making some of the best beer in the Galaxy. They use a precise mixture of genetically engineered bread-plants, rice, and Tsast flowers. The brewing is done in a specially constructed airtight facility in planetary orbit, where they pump a complex mixture of chemicals and gases through the liquid." The Doctor reeled all of this off as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Also, the commercial features a talking dog with two heads."

Mickey gaped. "And of course _you_ think it's a fun idea to take me to a spaceship made out of people with _France, _of all things, on board."

The Doctor shrugged. "I though it was fun. Didn't you?"

Mickey sighed and looked pleadingly at Martha.

"Don't look here," she said. "First time I went to the future? The slums."

"Figures."

"What? What's wrong with the slums? I love a good slum."

* * *

Lilith gently placed her youngest child in the crib, gazing down lovingly at the sleeping baby's face.

"So, what are we going to do?" said Asiman.

"Not much we can do at this point, save wait it out." They spoke in hushed tones, and not only because of the sleeping child. Asiman had made absolutely sure that his family's private quarters were not bugged, but there was always the chance of being overheard. "We need to determine who we can trust before we do anything."

"I honestly think that the Doctor is the most trustworthy person right now."

"Agreed. But his word means nothing of we get out of this mess with the same problems that we had when we started." Asiman began to pace nervously. "And right now, I don't think that either of them trust us."

"It's just…" Lilith sighed. "It's so difficult to trust Mr. Gabriel. He seems… unstable somehow."

"That's putting it lightly, don't you think?"

"Hm. If we could somehow work out what he's thinking, I'd be a bit more reassured. But I honestly don't think that anybody can fathom what goes on in that man's mind." She looked her husband in the eyes. "I'm scared, Asiman. I'm scared about what could happen to our family if this goes on any longer."

He took her in his arms and kissed her gently. "But we're doing this for our family, remember?"

"Maybe we should just leave. Get everybody, pack up, and just go off to another planet somewhere."

"We've worked so hard to get to where we are now. We can't give up, Lilith. Just a little longer… and then we can create a better life for ourselves. We just have to persevere."

Lilith was silent for a while before replying. "I think we should take the Doctor's offer. Help him put an end to this and renegotiate on our own."

Asiman nodded. "It's a gamble. But…"

"But what?"

"I don't think it's that easy to just walk out on Gabriel." His brow furrowed. "I think that there's a catch. A trap. Something he's prepared for anybody who might have second thoughts. And I think that it might be safer if we just stick to the original plan."

Lilith's hands grasped his, and she spared another glance for Elizabeth. "If we obey Gabriel, the Doctor will die."

"I know."

"How many people need him?" she asked. "How many planets, how many civilizations has he saved… and how many more will he save in the future? This man… This thing that calls itself Gabriel… he can do nothing but destroy." She looked up plaintively. "We should be stopping him, not helping him."

"Maybe," said Asiman. "But we can't forget our obligation to our family."

"No," Lilith agreed. "We can't."

As they stood there in silence, holding each other and lamenting the predicament they had put themselves in, the couple that had been husband and wife for millennia reflected that at one point or another, they would be forced to take a side.

They could only hope to choose the one that would allow them to survive.

* * *

This one was a tough one for me, because I'm reaching that point in the story where all of the thematic elements and plot threads start to come together, and I need to make sure I haven't got any loose ends floating around.

If you see said loose ends, like the story, or hate the story, let me know in a review. Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

Indulge me for a moment, please.

Now, because I live in Toronto and the Leafs suck harder than is _mathematically possible, _I've been supporting the San Jose Sharks. Naturally, this generates accusations of being a fair-weather fan. Truth is, I've been a vocal Sharks supporter for the last four years, and only now that the team has been doing well are these accusations surfacing. It's not just because they are doing well, though. They are _kicking ass_ and _taking names_ and then looking up those names in the phone book, showing up at their house, and _kicking their ass all over again_.

I really like their chances for the Stanley Cup this year. Of course, the big guys like Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, and Evgeni Nabokov are producing, but it's definitely the secondary scoring that's made them such a huge success. A breakout year from Devin Setoguchi and a resurgence from older-than-God defenceman Rob Blake stand out particularly. Really, the only name that isn't fulfilling expectations is former Rocket Richard Trophy winner Jonathan Cheechoo. For a one-time 56 goal scorer, 4 goals in mid-December is not acceptable. Let's get the Cheechoo train back on track!

Now then. If you read all that and have no idea what I'm talking about, go to Youtube right now and type the letters 'NHL' into the search. If you know exactly what I'm talking about, you are officially damn awesome.

Now then. On to the story.

* * *

9

_Everything you know is wrong!_

_Black is white, up is down, and short is long_

_And everything you thought was just_

_So important _

_Doesn't matter_

_Everything you know is wrong!_

_Just forget the words and sing along_

_All you need to understand is_

_Everything you know is wrong!_

_- Weird Al Yankovic_

* * *

_He sat alone on the rooftop, looking at the stars._

_He did that quite often, when he felt that he needed to think. Often he would wonder how his life would have been different had he chosen another planet, if he had not left his home. It had been so very long since he had seen those stars from any other angle, not since the two of them had traveled across the universe in their youth._

_But they were old now. Old and tired, and with a family to care for._

_Still, Asiman wondered. _

_What if he and the Doctor had never met?_

_His kind used to feed freely, in the old days. The Malsangurians were one of the most ancient civilizations in the universe, and had long ago roamed from planet to planet, taking blood wherever and whenever they pleased._

_Now, there were laws and restriction on what and when they could kill, and those were being ever narrowed._

_Who was he to defy his nature?_

_Asiman sighed and lay down. The cool metal of the warehouse roof dug into his back. The sky was clear tonight, and his sharpened vision took in the serene beauty of the night._

_His sharpened hearing picked up something else, too. The sound of breath, of cloth against cloth, the miniscule movements on the steel and concrete. He was not as alone as he had believed._

_He stood and looked in the direction of the sound- but there was nothing there._

"_What are you thinking about?"_

_He may have been the perfect predator, but he still jumped nearly a foot in the air. The voice had- impossibly- come from just behind him. He whipped around._

"_Who are you?"_

_The man was perched calmly on the edge of the rooftop. A tangle of dark hair crowned a face dominated by darker eyes, and a figure that was slender and agile. Asiman had never seen him before._

"_Who are you?" Asiman asked again._

"_Why, I am me." The voice was smooth and at the same time oddly grating. His speech was layered with tones that were almost hypnotic- he made you want to keep listening. "And you are you, Asiman. Silly me, I would've thought that was obvious."_

_The vampire craned his head, and began to circle the man. He did the same, and soon the two of them were slowly pacing opposite each other. The man was wearing a custom-fitted suit, something that could have a multitude of weapons concealed within. However, the most glaring threat wasn't hidden at all- oddly enough, what appeared to be two swords were strapped to his back._

"_What's your name?"_

"_A secret."_

"_You've got to have a proper name. What will I call you?"_

_The man seemed to think, briefly, and then the corner of his mouth twitched upward. "What is a name, Asiman, besides a title? An emperor, a beggar, a Doctor… all of us have our own special little title that means we are what we are. Maybe that's all it is, maybe it's something more." He stopped, and his face twitched almost like he had just thought of something particularly funny. "Hm. What's in a name, indeed? If you need a 'proper name,' then, Asiman, I suppose that Gabriel will do as well as any."_

_His movements were almost as hypnotic as his words. Each one was exaggerated, layered with an overt purpose that belied dangerous quickness. A definite threat._

"_Well, then, how do you know my name?"_

_He shrugged. "I asked one of the guys downstairs. He told me you were the one in charge, and I should see you if I had a proposition to make."_

"_And the proposition?"_

_The man with the name Gabriel stopped his pacing, and then darted forward in a burst of liquid motion._

_Asiman dipped under the first two strikes, and kicked sharply at Gabriel's shins._

_He moved swiftly to the side and hooked his own foot underneath Asiman's leg. Within seconds, Asiman was on the ground with the point of a blade digging into his neck._

_Gabriel's smile stopped just short of being literally sunny. "Say. What happens if you die before your psychic essence can jump into another body?"_

"_Uh… well, we would… die."_

_He sighed and took his foot off Asiman's chest and sheathed the strange sword. "Well. That's not very immortal at all, is it?"_

_Asiman rubbed his neck. "Is that what this is about? You want a cut of our lifespans?"_

"_Oh, no, no. just a hobby of mine, you see. Always on the lookout for new tricks." He offered a hand and helped Asiman up. "No, what I really want to talk to you about is a mutual friend of ours."_

"_Who do you mean?"_

"_The Doctor." He withdrew a data stick from one of his pockets, tossed it in the air, and caught it lightly. "I have the game all planned out, you see, I just need a board and playing pieces."_

"_What do you want with the Doctor that you need us for?"_

_He opened his mouth to answer, but then his face contorted suddenly. For the briefest of moments it became a visage of the utmost pain, but just as quickly, it passed. Still, Gabriel turned his head and spat, and Asiman could smell the tang of blood on the air._

"_Look," he said, suddenly all business, "I'm here to help you. You and your family, all you want is a better life, where you can prey on all the little humans you want. Me, I have a little something I'd like to settle with the Doctor. I think that those interests coincide."_

_Asiman eyed the man suspiciously. "Better people than you have tried to take down the Doctor."_

"_Trust me, there really haven't been any."_

"_You think you can outsmart him?"_

_Gabriel turned away from Asiman to look over the city of London sparkling in the night with eyes that shone blackly. "Try me," he said._

* * *

The blue light radiating from the planet Dreme mingled with the rest of the colors cast by the holographic Ri board to bathe the TARDIS' projection room, and the Doctor, in a multicoloured haze.

Gabriel's blue question mark still hung over Gallifrey, and the red projection of the Doctor was still in place over Earth.

Dreme was almost exactly in between the two planets, and a blue holographic Ood currently occupied the space.

"Now then. What do I do next?" The Doctor spoke aloud. He did that often while he was alone, it helped him to think. Perhaps it was the TARDIS' way of communicating with him. "Or rather… what does he expect me to do? The game may balance on the next few moves. A turning point."

He reset the game board to its original layout, and then watched the match between himself and Gabriel play itself out move for move. He examined each play, looking for patterns that might hint at Gabriel's weaknesses or betray his own. But there were none. Show this match to any grandmaster of the game, and they would no doubt herald it as a flawless example of how to play.

"But he has a plan. He always has a plan." He played with the projector, examining the board from every conceivable angle. "What's he going to do?"

He programmed one of his Sontaran pieces to take the Ood on Dreme, looking for any possible openings afforded to Gabriel by this move. He continued with this method, trying several different moves, from the obvious to the unexpected to the just plain stupid.

He dimly heard somebody enter the ship, far above him, but he was to deep in thought to care.

How important was this game? A distraction? Or the key to everything? He supposed that it must be the latter, because even if he should discover it was the former, his whole strategy would inevitably need to change.

"Doctor!" Jack's voice called for him. "Where are you?"

"Down here, Jack!" The Doctor circled the hologram again. An aggressive move would be the best way to end things quickly, no doubt, and ensure that nobody else was hurt. But was that what Gabriel was expecting?

Maybe there was an offensive push coming his way that he had best be on guard for?

Jack stormed into the room and spotted him. "Doc. Things aren't good out there. You need to do something."

"I am doing something, Jack." He called up a list of his available moves and scrolled through each again. For each one, he created a list of Gabriel's possible tactics and examined it. "He places so much importance on games, and strategy, and thought… if there's a way to beat him, then that's it."

"Permission to speak freely, Doctor?"

He frowned. "Of course, Jack."

"The best way of dealing with this guy is putting a bullet in his head. He's not going to stop because he loses at some stupid game, and he's not going to stop if you outsmart him once and screw up one set of his plans. He's just going to create more games, more plans, and carry this whole thing out all over again." Jack drew his handgun, loaded a clip into it, and offered it to the Doctor, butt-first. "This man deserves death, Doctor. The only way of making sure that he doesn't do this all over again is by killing him. I'm sorry, but that's the way it has to be."

The Doctor reached out and took the proffered weapon from Jack's hands. Ran his fingers along the cool metal, almost feeling the machine's ability to kill. The power that it offered to people who should never have it.

"I'm the Doctor," he said limply.

The gun clattered to the floor.

"I don't kill people. I help them. This man needs my help, Jack- he needs to be saved."

Jack bent to pick the gun up. "And what if he's beyond salvation. Doctor? What then?"

He remembered the loneliness. The awful, awful feeling of self-imposed exile. "I was that man, once."

"What do you mean?"

"I was the sort of man who would make that judgment. Who would enforce that law. Who would carry out that sentence. And… I hated it. I hated… how lonely I was."

Jack said nothing.

"And now I've finally become something other than what I was. And… do I have to go back? Do I need to? Is it my… responsibility?"

Jack pocketed the gun. "Decide for yourself. He's just killed the police commissioner."

He looked up sharply. "What?"

"Broad daylight. Press conference."

The Doctor gaped for a moment, and then he and Jack sprinted out of the room and through the many levels of the ancient spacecraft.

He could tell right away that something was wrong when he left the TARDIS. It hit him like a bad odor- a wave of fear and anger and paranoia- desperate people at the end of their rope.

Mickey was leaning against the outside of the TARDIS, waiting for them. "Thank God," he gasped. "There are actual riots going on downtown. The police are trying to keep order, but they can't even keep order among themselves- the security around the press conferences was so tight, they're saying it had to have been an inside job."

Sirens wailed dimly in the distance. There was a haze of smoke over the downtown core of the city.

"Was it caught on camera?" the Doctor asked.

"Press conference?" Said Mickey, "It was very straightforward. Bullet through his brain- high powered rifle, I'm guessing."

Two fire trucks zipped by as they were speaking, bound for the carnage in the distance.

"The city's degenerated into anarchy," the Doctor came to a horrible realization. "He'll be able to do anything he wants. There's no help. No backup. It's just us against him."

"I'm thinking that's exactly the way he wants it," Jack noted.

The Doctor looked around. "Where've the others gone? Martha, Gwen, Sarah Jane?"

"I told them to go make sure their families are alright," said Jack. "Make sure they're somewhere safe."

"And what about you two?" The Doctor looked between Mickey and Jack. He realized that they had no real family, not anymore.

Mickey smiled. "What're you, thick? We're here to make sure _your_ family's safe."

This was perhaps the most respect the Doctor had ever felt for Mickey. "Right," he said, "First thing's first. Asiman and Lilith may have said that they're on our side of this, but we need to make sure. Also, if we can find where Gabriel's hiding, then we can come up with-"

He was cut off by a low rumble and a loud roar from the direction of downtown. They turned to look and saw a cloud of black smoke and brown dust rising above the rooftops.

"Oh hell," Jack cursed. "That was a building blowing up."

"They might still be there!" the Doctor almost dashed into the TARDIS, but then realized that the distinctive noise it made would give them away. "Jack- the car. You drive."

The three of them piled into one of Torchwood's black automobiles and headed in the direction of the dust cloud.

"What if this is a distraction?" Mickey sorted through the collection of firearms beneath the seats and came up with a laser rifle. "Should one of us stay behind?"

The Doctor held up his sonic screwdriver. "This'll get us out of any emergencies, I think."

"Doesn't it always?" Jack asked.

"I've learned my lesson," said the Doctor, pointing to a switch on the side of it that had not been there before. "Summons the TARDIS to my location remotely. Sick of getting stuck without it."

"Took you a while to learn that one," Mickey muttered.

"Watch it!"

"Anyways," Jack turned a corner. The streets were full of people milling about, none of them certain of where they were going. There was a crash as someone tossed a brick through an electronics store window. "The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised of they called the military in here to restore order."

"And who knows how much fun he'd have with that," the Doctor mused.

A cell phone rang.

All three of them checked their pockets, and Mickey withdrew his own mobile. "Hello?"

He listened to the voice on the other end for a moment, and then wordlessly handed the phone to the Doctor, who took it. "Who is this?"

For a moment there was no answer, and then: "That building was a police station, in case you were wondering."

"Gabriel. What do you want?"

Jack turned down another street, and now they could see the flaming remains of a mid-sized police building. No emergency workers had blocked off the street yet, and a crowd of onlookers had formed a safe distance away.

"That's you lot in the black car, I'm guessing."

"He's near here somewhere. Keep driving, Jack."

Gabriel snickered. "What are you willing to do to get your daughter back safely, Doctor?"

_So he knows she's a Time Lord, then._ "Whatever I need to."

"Mmm. Well, how about this. You drive headlong into that crowd gawking at the fire, and I'll let her go right now. That is what you need to do."

"No."

"No?" The voice laughed louder now. "Whatever you need to do, you said. Didn't take you long to renege on that."

"She wouldn't want me to save her that way."

"Oh no? I'd say right now she'd be pretty happy with anybody saving her any damn way they could."

Sudden anger boiled up in the Doctor's mind. "If you've hurt her-"

"You'll what? Kill me?"

"You just might wish that I had."

"You're a funny man, you know that? Funny guy." There was another voice from the other end of the line, speaking to Gabriel. "Oh, hang on. Yeah, can I have the spicy chicken combo? Um… no tomatoes, thanks. Yeah, Coke."

"Gabriel."

"I said _hang on_."

The Doctor turned towards the backseat to consult an expert. "Any fast food places around here?"

Mickey thought for a moment. "Sandwich shop next block over, McDonalds straight ahead, and a burger place back the way we came."

"It'll be that sandwich place."

Jack nodded. The voiced continued on the other end.

"Lemme see if I have change… Ah, nevermind. To go, please. Thank you very much." There was a rustle as he presumably picked up the bag of food. "So then, Doctor, I'll repeat myself. How far are you willing to go for your daughter?"

"As far as I need to," he said coldly. "But I think you misunderstand me. You don't get to decide how far that is. Because none of this is going to be settled on your terms, Gabriel- I'm going to find a way to rescue her, and I'm going to do it my way."

More condescending laughter.

They turned the corner, and Mickey pointed at a deli just ahead of them. The Doctor scanned the nearby street and spotted Gabriel instantly. He was on the roof of the deli, casually sipping from a paper cup. He waved cheerily.

The Doctor glanced at Mickey. "Be ready to shoot him. Nonlethal shot- aim for his legs." He stepped out of the car.

"Hello, Doctor! Nice to see you again!"

The crowds of people bustling by, either to gawk at the carnage two blocks down or to run away from it, paid no attention to the two. Their gaze was just shifted subtly aside, and although they knew someone was there, they just didn't care. Even Jack and Mickey, who were all too aware of what was happening, found that they had to concentrate to see them.

"I've got an offer for you."

"Oh?" Gabriel inclined his head interestedly.

"This is between you and me." He waved his hand at the people in the streets, at the city of London, at humanity. "It always has been. Leave my family, my friends… all these people… leave them out of this. They don't need to die."

Gabriel giggled. "Oh, I bet you say that to _all_ the evil geniuses."

"Listen, you and I can work this out on our own. Nobody else needs to be involved."

He shook his head, and pulled a handful of fries from the paper bag beside him. "But it is just you and me. All these people- they don't count. There's nothing they can do. They're just pieces in our game. Which I am thoroughly enjoying, by the way." He ate the fries with relish. "What was your last move, by the way?"

"I took the planet Dreme with one of my Sontarans."

"Then I'll use my Judoon to seize Krop Tor."

The Doctor thought this move over. Gabriel had countered an aggressive move with an equally aggressive one. Both of them were attacking the other's defences ruthlessly, each pushing towards the piece representative of the other player.

"Do you see it, Doctor?" Gabriel spun on his heel, gesturing grandly to the sky clouded with smoke. "The game is coming to an end. It's just a matter of who can get to the other first."

The Doctor paused for a moment, and then shouted, "Shoot him, Mickey!"

But it was a split second too late. Her had snatched the paper bag of food and bolted away across the rooftops before the laser bolt sizzled through the space where he had been moments before.

* * *

He had not bothered to tie Jenny up, or even restrain her in any way.

There had to be a reason for that, of course. There was a reason behind everything he did, even those reasons were unfathomable to any person with a sane mind. And so, Jenny forced herself to try and think with an unstable mind, to look at things with a skewed sort of logic.

It made her head hurt.

Not that she needed to be tied up, either. It appeared that there was no possible way for her to get out of this room while he was gone, and when he was there, he always carried those two swords with him. Hand-to-hand expert she may be, he still had the upper hand as long as he was armed.

And if she stole one of the swords, well- he would probably just shoot her. It wasn't like she would die.

She had been working on unlocking the sliding steel door for hours, searching through what parts of his computers she could for a code, or password, or some sort of program that she could use to open it.

When that failed, she threw herself at it with enough force to dislocate her shoulder.

As the regeneration energy numbed the pain with a strange sort of detachment, she turned to the many television screens lining the room, looking for some sort of patterns there.

There was live coverage of the police commissioner's assassination, of course, and the ensuing aftermath. Things were complicated further when the crowd in front of the building rioted and another police depot exploded downtown.

_Well, he's using this to create chaos, keep the law enforcement distracted… and maybe my father. What else could he be doing this for?_

_Because it's fun_, said a voice in the back of her mind. The little part of her that understood him- maybe there was that little bit in everybody.

Other screens showed views of Earth from space, news channels in numerous languages from numerous parts of the world, and instructional video on constructing advanced nuclear fusion engines to provide the energy needed for basic time travel. This last one was hosted by a smiling blue man with red eyes dressed in a violently multicoloured labcoat.

There was also a sitcom from two galaxies over, a documentary on the evolution of computer animation, security camera footage of a sandwich shop, one of those bouncing-ball screensavers, a structural breakdown of her own DNA, and an episode of _Scooby-Doo_.

_What is the point of all this?_ she wondered. _He bombards himself with all of this- is he looking for something?_

She tried to take in all of the images at once. The triple helix of her own genetic material caught her eye and, as she watched, it broke down into the human double helix segments.

One of the sharp pains that always came from thinking too hard stabbed her mind.

_How can I function if my brain won't let me? This pain means that something's wrong, that I'm pushing my body past its limits…_

Another bolt seared the train of thought from her mind.

_It's because of the blend of species. It might function well enough, but not without the odd hardware problem every now and then._

She scanned the screens, and the deluge of information sparked another flash of pain. And just maybe, a spark of intuition.

_Blend of species…_

She was part human. Gabriel was too, but he was a blend of countless species, cobbled together to produce the best possible result.

_Inability to function…_

Gabriel who had experienced a sudden violent fit right before her eyes, and had suddenly become incapable of not only coherent thought, but also physical control over his body.

_Of course!_

The impurity in her biology was a simple inconvenience- no real danger at all. But that was just a small impurity. What would happen if the inconsistencies in genetic material were significant enough that the subject were no longer any single species, but an amalgam of hundreds?

Well, then, the potential for almost every one of his bodily functions to fail would be enormous. By all rights, he should be long dead.

_Which means that there's one more thing missing from the equation. Something's keeping him alive._

Gabriel himself appeared on the security camera of the sandwich shop. He was speaking on a cell phone, pausing to order food. Jenny focused on the screen and could make out the words _How far are you willing to go for your daughter_ on his lips. Then he left the restaurant and was lost to Jenny's vision.

Hurriedly, she began sifting through programs on the computer until she found one that seemed to change the images shown on the screens. She cycled through security images throughout the city until she caught a glimpse of her father in one of them- he was standing just outside of an idling black automobile, talking to somebody offscreen.

Continuing to the next image, she saw a more complete version of the conversation. Gabriel was lounging on the rooftop and munching on fast food while the Doctor lectured him from the street below.

As she watched, the Doctor shouted something, and someone from inside the black car fired a shot at Gabriel. It missed, however, and Gabriel himself was gone from the camera's field of vision.

Which probably meant that he was coming back to check up on her. Jenny quickly restored all the screens to their original pictures and then lay down on the bed, looking as bored as she could.

Within minutes the door slid open and Gabriel entered. "Hope you like chicken."

He tossed her a wrapped sandwich, whish she unravelled and took a bite out of. "So what are you going to do with me? Just keep me here until my dad shows up to rescue me?"

He handed her a soda. "Nope. I'm probably going to have to move you at some point, and then wait for him to come rescue you _there._ Oh, that reminds me. What dress size do you wear?"

"You certainly know how to sweet talk a girl. Don't you know that's a rude question to ask?"

"If you're not going to tell me, I'm gonna have to guess."

"And it isn't like you have complete biological and structural analyses of my entire body." She frowned. "And what the hell do you want to know that for, anyways?"

He looked at her like she was a child eating paste. "What do you think? To buy you a dress. And I thought you were smart.

Jenny decided to drop the subject, and sipped her soda. "So I figured something out."

"Did you?" He sounded more delighted than anything.

"That combination of different species you've turned yourself into is dangerously unstable. By all rights, your body should reject all the junk you've put into your DNA and kill itself. As evidenced by that seizure-thing you had in the car while we were taking you to Torchwood."

He nodded merrily. "Go on, go on!"

"Which means that you should be dead."

"Aha." He raised a hand. "I have spotted the flaw in your theory. I am most definitely still alive."

"But you shouldn't be," she said. "Something is keeping you from dying. And I bet that something is powerful enough to deal with injuries a little more severe than cuts and bruises."

He smiled and leaned closer. His breath was hot in her ear. "I have a secret, Jenny."

"Don't we all, though?"

"It's a really good one."

"You gonna tell me?"

Gabriel's fingers rattled his computer keyboard, and suddenly the room was filled with images of his face. Every single instance of him being caught on a security camera, appearing in the background of a news broadcast and, in one shot, as a part of a live studio audience, flashed through the dark room.

"You've figured out this much already," he said, "Now just put the last bit of the puzzle together. All the pieces are there, just waiting to be assembled."

He tapped a key, and all the screens with his face in them went blank. The words MATCHING RESULTS DELETED, and below them, ALL RECORDS OF SUBJECT PURGED glowed dully in red. Gabriel had wiped any photographic evidence of his existence from every camera in London.

"Finish the game."

* * *

He's right, you know. They're all just sittin' there, waiting for someone to put them together.


	10. Chapter 10

Each chapter is getting progressively more and more difficult for me to write, as I have to make sure that every loose end is adressed and the clues I've planted are all leading to the same conclusion.

I have yet to recieve any comments addressing the major recurring thematic elements in this story, and nobody's guessed the answer to these riddles so far. This is probably your last chance to do it and still feel smart, as the next two chapters will explain everything.

* * *

10

That Famous Doctor

_I possess the two qualities required to see absolute truth: I am brilliant. And I am unloved._

_-Miss Evangelista_

* * *

"I didn't want this. I never wanted this."

The death count in the city of London numbered in the hundreds, all a direct result of the chaos caused by Gabriel's plots against the Doctor. Fear and panic hung over the city like a thundercloud, tangible to those sensitive to psychic energies.

Citizens were abandoning the city in droves, as crime rates skyrocketed and law became meaningless. The police force began to fall apart as more higher-up officers were murdered, and bombs went off in two more stations within the city limits. The government had begun talks on dispatching the military to restore order to the city.

"This is wrong… I just wanted… my family…"

It was the same rooftop where he had first met Gabriel, months ago. Today the light rain had washed the sky free of the smoke and dust that was now constantly rising from the city

"You made the choice to help this man carry out his plans, even though you knew how dangerous he was." Lilith said sourly, "And when the man we _should_ have gone to right away offered to help us, you continued to agonize for days over whether or not it was the right thing to do!"

Asiman turned away.

"Have you decided now?" she continued, "Or are you going to let hundreds more innocent people die while this _madman_ gambles with the lives of everybody in this city? Those citizens might be our prey, but… they are _people_, at least. With lives, and families, just like ours. And what he's doing to them is wrong!" (She actually added the exclamation mark at the end, projecting a sharp image of it)

Asiman gazed for a moment at the ruined city spread before him. The smoke still hanging in the damp air stung his nostrils slightly. "I'll never understand just why he loves this little planet so much," he whispered.

"What was that?"

Asiman vaulted from the rooftop, and Lilith followed him. "Fine. We go to the Doctor. Tell him we're ready to help him bring this guy down. Ask what we can do to help. And…"

"…Ask him to ensure our family's safety," Lilith finished.

Asiman would have continued, but he spotted a solitary figure walking towards the warehouse that hid their underground home. Gabriel looked up and waved cheerily. He was carrying two large shopping bags.

"Asiman. Lilith. Out enjoying the weather?" He trod through a puddle.

"Hello, Mr. Gabriel," said Asiman. "What have you got there?"

They stepped inside the deserted warehouse and Gabriel set the bags on the concrete floor. Reaching into one of them, he withdrew a lavish black dress that wouldn't look out of place at a function hosted by royalty. "Well, I was out shopping, and I just couldn't decide between these two. I bought them both, but I'll still have to choose one of them. What do you think?"

He pulled out the other dress, a vibrant blue one, and held them up to compare.

Asiman and Lilith didn't say anything for quite a long time. Presently, Lilith looked cautiously at her husband, then at Gabriel, and then finally at the two expensive evening gowns he was still holding patiently in his hand.

"Um." She hesitated. "I… like the blue one."

"Excellent!" Gabriel beamed. "What about you, Asiman?"

He was thoroughly confused. "Uh. Blue for me too, I guess."

"Well, then," he nodded briskly. "Thank you very much!"

Gabriel stepped into the invisible elevator- very similar to the one used by Torchwood Three- that led underground. "Seeya."

As soon as he was gone, Asiman turned to his wife. "My God. He's completely insane."

Lilith shook her head. "Maybe he's just acting that way. Everything he's doen so far has been a part of some complex script he's got in his head. He's far too precise to be doing everything on impulse."

Asiman supposed that Gabriel's unpredictability was a result of his genius- but there would be know way of knowing for sure without personally taking a look inside the man's head. At that was too dangerous to even seriously consider. "Okay," he decided, "I'm going to the Doctor, and I'll tell him that he can find Gabriel and his daughter here. You need to stay and watch him. If he leaves, follow him. I'll be as quick as I can."

Lilith nodded, her red hair falling over her face as she did so. Asiman gently brushed it out of the way, leaned forward, and kissed her softly.

"Be careful," he said.

"You too," she replied.

Asiman smiled, and then turned and was gone, his predator's speed carrying him swiftly over the rooftops of the city.

* * *

He was focusing more than ever on the Ri game he and Gabriel were playing.

Six high-ranking police officers had been murdered in the past week and, at the scene of each there had been a note written in a cryptic language that none of the government's codebreakers could decipher.

The Doctor, of course, understood that the complex code was actually simple Judoon. Each note detailed another move in the game, and the Doctor adjusted the pieces on the holographic board accordingly.

Once he had decided upon his own move, he would scrawl a graffito detailing it in the same language on the side of a building. Within a short while, Gabriel would respond with another murder and another note.

The Doctor had thought that perhaps if Gabriel had no move to make, he would refrain from committing more murders in order to pass on the message. So, he had gone two days without writing a response.

Gabriel had simply murdered another sergeant, and this time the attached note read, _"Might as well take advantage of the opportunity."_

The Doctor had grimly done so, and so they had continued with the increasingly high-stakes game.

"D'you ever think that maybe we're losing sight of the real issue here?"

He didn't respond to Jack's question right away, and continued to pace the TARDIS projection room.

"I mean, there are more… proactive methods we could be taking towards stopping this guy. Maybe by continuing with this game, you're endorsing his way of communication through assassination."

Jack was seated cross-legged on the floor, amidst a small pile of disassembled firearms. He was cleaning and then reassembling each in turn. Mickey lounged against the wall, eating slices from the pizza box perched on a nearby table.

The Doctor snatched a piece for himself. "You saw that one note of his. He's gonna continue with the killing until we stop him, so I might as well use the means of communication he's given me."

"I still think it's kinda cold," Mickey spoke through a mouthful of pepperoni. "Lacks respect. You know?"

"And I'm still not sure that a board game is going to help us stop an insane terrorist." Jack snapped a clip into one of the handguns he was assembling and laid the weapon aside. "You're a doctor. You could at least be helping those people."

Again, the Doctor didn't answer.

There was no question that the pieces on the Ri board had now entered endgame. The two factions had been whittled down to one last attacking force and one hastily assembled defence.

This game was unique, perhaps, in that both sides were drawing inexorably closer to the piece representing the opponent. Endgame would normally mean that defeat was inevitable for one side, but in this particular game, it was inevitable for both. The defences were no match for the surrounding attacking pieces, it had become a matter of who could manoeuvre quickly enough.

For one side or the other, victory would come within the next few moves. Which meant that every action now was crucial.

"Think for a moment. What was the very first thing that Gabriel did? His first move?"

"He sent you that data stick. The one with the game on it."

The Doctor smiled. "Now, we've been theorizing that maybe this game is a ruse, a distraction- I obsess over it while he carries on with his plot to rule the world. But there's something missing from that equation, isn't there?"

"The plot," said Mickey.

"Exactly. If this game is a distraction… then what is it distracting me from?"

Jack made as if to say something, and then stopped.

"As far as we can tell, he doesn't want anything. There's no clear reason behind any of what he's done, save to antagonize me. So what if the game's not a distraction from his plots…"

"…It's the other way around," Jack finished. "You think that all those people he's killed, all those things he's done… you think that he's doing it to distract you from the game the two of you are playing?"

The Doctor shrugged. "It makes more sense than anything else I can think of."

Mickey raised a hand. "Am I the only one that finds that terrifying? That he's doing all this for the sake of a _board game_?"

"But it's not just a game to him, is it?" The Doctor mused, "To him, it's something more. It's a way for him to prove that he's smarter than me- that he's better than I am."

"But is he?" Jack squinted at the holographic pieces, trying to make some sense out of them. "Can you beat him, Doctor?"

His mouth was a grim line. "It's going to be close."

Just then there was the sound, audible throughout the entire bowels of the ship, of the TARDIS door opening and closing. Feet on the metal grating, and a muffled question. And then a familiar voice shouted out: "Doctor! Jack! Mickey! Are you in here? I can smell the pizza!"

The three of them glanced at each other, and then scrambled out of the projection room to meet Martha. She wasn't alone.

"Put the gun down, Jack."

Jack hesitantly lowered the handgun he had drawn and pointed at Asiman as soon as he had seen the vampire. Asiman's hands were held out in front of him in a gesture of acquiescence and he was looking pleadingly at the Doctor.

He spoke first to Martha. "What are you doing here? I thought you were with your family."

She sighed. "I explained the situation to them, and they've gone off in hiding with Tom- my fiancée," she clarified, clearing up the Doctor's momentary confusion. He hadn't seen her in so long- had forgotten she was engaged.

"Anyways," she went on, "Asiman here had tracked down my mother's address and showed up just as they were all stepping out the door. He told me that he needed to talk to you, but had no idea where to find you."

The Doctor nodded. "So then. Why should I listen to you?"

Asiman sputtered. "I- I- Doctor, I'm so sorry- I can tell you where he is. Where your daughter is. But we have to hurry."

There was a moment of silence as he scrutinized Asiman's face, analyzed his words, probed his mind- and saw nothing but honesty.

"Jack, Mickey. Grab guns. As many as you need. Martha. Go pull up a car outside, as fast as you can. We take no chances- if you need to kill him, kill him."

Jack and Mickey vanished into the depths of the ship, and Martha sprinted outside, leaving the Doctor and Asiman alone.

The Malsangurian slumped into a nearby chair. "I made a terrible mistake. I let my family down. I deserve to die because of it."

"Don't be stupid. You're coming with me, and we're going to put a stop to this. Right now."

He was shaking his head desperately from side to side. "I just pray we're fast enough. That he hasn't already sensed my betrayal."

The Doctor shifted nervously from foot to foot. "Where's your wife, Asiman?"

"I told her to watch him. Keep an eye on him. If he does anything, try and stop him."

"Lilith is perfectly capable. I'm sure she's fine."

He nodded agreement wordlessly, but his face said something different.

Jack and Mickey strode back into the room with half of World War Two on their backs. They said nothing, but Jack smiled with evident satisfaction that unnerved the Doctor. He was back in his element.

The Doctor wondered if he was making a mistake.

There was a honking from directly outside- Martha had pulled up in one of the Torchwood cars. Still silent, the group stepped outside of the blue doors and began to step inside the waiting car. It was Asiman who broke the silence, suddenly, as he made a sharp sobbing noise and sank to his knees on the pavement.

The Doctor was at his side as the vampire collapsed into a tearful heap, and it was then that it struck him as well- a sudden outpouring of a terrible energy, and an equally abrupt scream of fear and despair.

To the Doctor, it was just a twinge that he wouldn't have noticed had he not been focusing on it. To Asiman, it was a heart-wrenching wail inside his head, so overwhelming as to be incapacitating.

It was only natural. He had been so close to her that her pain was his pain, communicated along the invisible bond that held their minds together.

He looked up at the Doctor. His handsome face had somehow become hideous in its loss and its agony.

"We're too late. I was two late. Lilith..." His eyes were horrible empty things. "Something horrible is happening."

* * *

Gabriel bustled about busily, zipping back and forth throughout the underground complex and happily carrying out the most inane tasks as if they had the utmost importance.

He dutifully prepared two roast beef sandwiches on white bread, measuring every ingredient with exaggerated care. He disassembled and then reassembled all the firearms he owned, examining the components and counting the ammunition. He washed and pressed a set of formal clothing, including the blue dress he had shown her earlier and a custom-fitted black suit. He cleaned and polished the two duelling swords that he always carried with him, winding tape around the handles and testing the grips. He removed a number of DVDs from the collection perched on the shelf next to their television. He went through and sorted piles of medical textbooks, scientific documents, religious scriptures, novels, and picture books.

Lilith watched all of this out of the corner of her eye, keeping as low-key as possible. She sat in one of the armchairs by the invisible elevator and read for a while, as Gabriel dashed past one way and then back the other, busying himself with innumerable small tasks.

Finally, he stopped walking past her and stood directly in front of her, waiting patiently for her to put down the book she was reading. She did so and looked up. "Yes?"

"Where is Asiman?" he asked.

She only hesitated for a moment. "I don't know. He must have gone out."

"Oh." He nodded agreeably. "If he gives you a call, can you tell him that we've run out of sandwich meat?"

"Y-yeah. Sure."

"Great." His face lit up. "Well, then, I'm off to have a nap. Seeya, I guess." He sauntered off to his private rooms, and Lilith, after a moment's confusion, returned to her book.

She read for another hour before a voice interrupted her thoughts.

_...if he's put the clues together yet. If he has, this will be much more difficult…_

It took her a moment's looking around to realize that the voice wasn't a noise- it was coming from inside her head.

…_destroyed so very many. Gallifrey. Logopolis. Traken. Really, when you look at it, the responsibility is…_

It was Gabriel's voice.

In his sleep, the normally impenetrable mass that was his mind had unwoven, and strings of his thought had come loose. It was almost as if Lilith was hearing a conversation through a closed door, which explained why she had first thought it was a noise.

Now that she thought about it, she couldn't ever remember Gabriel sleeping before.

…_simply hilarious. You can't make this stuff up…_

She furrowed her brow, wondering whether it was worthwhile to eavesdrop on his thoughts. True, there might be valuable information contained within, but she had a nasty feeling that the thoughts of the insane were best kept to themselves.

…_those stupid vampires have no idea. If they did…_

What was this now?

…_doubt they'd be anywhere near so willing to help me. Ha! They'd probably eat me alive…_

Lilith stood and craned her head. That had sounded like something important.

…_now, if I had to rank my favourite cheeses, how would the list go…?_

She clenched her teeth in frustration. His thought were leaping all over the place, making it next to impossible to discern anything of importance.

…_the truth. Hidden throughout all of time and space. He'll never find them…_

Hesitantly, Lilith closed her eyes and concentrated. She sensed Gabriel's powerful mind almost instantly- it was like looking up in the sky and trying to find the sun. He was in a state of unconsciousness, and the psychic defences around his mind had worn away.

…_don't like any of my music. They don't say it, but they _think_ it…_

Still, those thoughts were a jumbled mass of twisted genius and random nonsense. She probed his mind gently, sifting through countless streams of thought and looking for one that might betray his true intentions.

…_can't underestimate them. Lilith especially- she's always been suspicious, even from the start…_

This whole mess stemmed from the fact that Gabriel's reasoning made sense to him alone. But if she could get inside his mind, and see his innermost thoughts, then she could take that advantage from him.

…_the Doctor. Oh, that famous Doctor…_

The barriers he had set in place opened before her like unlocked doors, and more and more of his mind streamed into hers.

…_think I don't know where Asiman is. I'm not that stupid…_

She followed thoughts that flitted throughout layers of distortion.

…_Lilith…problems must be dealt with…_

Lilith frowned slightly. It had almost seemed as though that last thought was directed at her.

_Hello, Lilith._

The sleeping consciousness two rooms away snapped down on hers like a steel trap. Desperately, she tried to close her own thoughts, but he was hopelessly powerful.

Lilith clutched her hands over her ears, but the noise was coming from inside her skull. Gabriel's mind continued to bombard her with his twisted thoughts and reasoning and… knowledge.

She opened her eyes. She hadn't even been aware that they were closed.

He was kneeling over her- she had collapsed at some point previously. "Don't you know it's impolite to eavesdrop- regardless of how it is done?"

She forced the words out. "N-no. Stop… no… more…"

Gabriel shook his head. "Why were you in my mind, Lilith?"

She could see it, now. The way he thought, the way he saw the world. It made an awful sort of sense now.

"You wanted to know what I was thinking." He smiled and cradled her head gently. "Here you go."

She screamed. He had thrown the door to his mind open wide, and she saw everything that he knew. Past, present, and future were open before her, and the workings of the universe itself flooded her innermost thoughts.

He was full of chaos and death. He was full of an angelic light. He was full of logic and cold scientific reason. He was full of passion and hatred and burning emotion. He was full of beauty and wondrous imagination. He was full of atrocity and hideous reality. He was all that was right, and everything that was wrong.

Gabriel's mind, a maelstrom of contradictions, overwhelmed Lilith's mind; a mounting noise that drowned out all hope of rational thought.

She screamed. She could not stop screaming. Not now, not ever.

Gabriel exhaled tiredly and brushed a tangle of black hair from his eyes. He continued to kneel, and waited.

He was not disappointed. The pain rocked him like a bolt of lightning, and for the briefest of moments he was dying, and his screams joined hers.

The familiar surge of energy blanketed the pain, wending its way through his twisted inner workings, and after a moment the pain had vanished.

He stood and, whistling a cheerful tune, went about his work.

He found a pen, and some paper, and wrote a short note, placing the paper in the writhing Lilith's hand. She clenched it reflexively, and held it as she continued to voice her anguish.

Gabriel changed into his custom-fitted black suit and tie, adjusted his hair so that it framed his face neatly, and brushed his teeth. He buckled one of the two duelling swords not in the small of his back, but on waist, so that it hung at the side of his leg. The traditional position for a duel. The other sword he slung casually over his shoulder.

He walked back to his own rooms and found Jenny sitting tersely in one of his chairs.

"Hang on just a second." He rustled through his belongings and came up with a plastic shopping bag. Tossing the bag away, he revealed a stunning backless blue dress. "Here you go!" He tossed it at her.

Jenny let it fall to the ground.

There was a moment of silence and then Gabriel said, "Put it on."

"Why?"

He rolled his eyes. "Well, we _have _to look our best if we're going to meet your father."

Jenny looked at the dress, and then back at him. "If I put this on, you'll take me to my dad?"

"The Doctor, yes. Now come on, hurry up."

He sat and watched dispassionately as Jenny undressed and put on the gown. With a kind of amusement she noted that this was the first time she had ever actually been dressed in formal wear. She might have enjoyed it, in other circumstances.

While she changed, Gabriel withdrew a mobile phone from his suit jacket and typed a short text message. "There we go," he said, once he was finished, "Your father is on his way."

"Here?"

"No, no, of course not, Jenny." He rattled a pair of handcuffs at her. "If he was coming here, he'd bring his friends, and that's the last thing I want. We're going to meet him. I'm afraid you'll have to be handcuffed for this one."

Wordlessly she held out her hands.

"Behind your back, please."

She put her arms behind her back, and in an instant they were bound with a metallic _click_.

"Very good! Now, then, we must hurry if we want to arrive in time." He beckoned for her to follow him out of the door.

Jenny followed him. Gabriel was practically dancing his way along, humming delightedly. A jarring screeching noise echoed throughout the hallways.

"What is that?"

"Oh, that's just Lilith," he said. "You met Lilith, right? Small-minded sort of girl, I'm afraid." He giggled.

Jenny was about to ask him to explain, but then she saw.

Her first impression was of a writhing mass of red and white. Lilith's skin had gone deathly pale, and her red hair was tossed violently back and forth as she continued to scream. Her eyes were horrible empty things.

"W-what did you do?" Jenny realized that she wasn't just hearing Lilith's screams with her ears. Some of that agony seemed to be inside her own head.

"She wanted to know," Gabriel waved a dismissive hand. "I showed her."

Jenny didn't want him to explain what that meant. They stepped into the elevator, but Jenny could still hear the screams until long after they drove away from the warehouses in the car that had been waiting outside.

* * *

Asiman clutched his head and breathed heavily as the Torchwood car sped through the London streets.

The Doctor bent down beside him in the back of the car, laying a hand on his back and projecting as much psychic reassurance as he could.

"Asiman," he said. "I can help her. Whatever he's done, I can make it better. But first we have to stop him- do you understand?"

Asiman shook his head. "Oh, God, Doctor. Whatever he's done- it's horrible. She's screaming. She can't stop screaming."

There was the sudden ring of a cell phone.

"That's mine." Jack took one hand off the wheel and pulled his mobile from his pocket, and handed it to Mickey.

"Hello." Mickey turned. "It's Sarah Jane. What's up?" He listened momentarily, and then swore harshly.

"What? What's going on?" The Doctor was sick of everything going wrong. Why couldn't he get some good news for a change?

"It's the aliens," Mickey explained. "Either they're not as loyal as Asiman tells us, or Gabriel's done something to them, because they've taken hostages inside a bunch of government buildings. Sarah Jane's there now, with Gwen, but they don't know what they should do."

"Doctor," Jack said, "Where do we go?"

He hesitated briefly. "Keep going. Gabriel is our first target- I've got to stop him."

"Mr. Gabriel can't be stopped," moaned Asiman.

"Now don't you talk like that." The Doctor hoped that Asiman was more reassured than he was himself. "He's doing this one purpose. It's the end of his game- and he's going all-out with the offense. If we can counter with our own, then we can still get him."

"Doctor," said Martha. She was seated on the opposite side of Asiman.

"Your wife is still alive. Hold on to that for now. If we let ourselves be overwhelmed, then we lose sight of what needs to be done. We have to stop this. We _can_ stop this."

"Doctor!" Martha repeated, more insistently.

"What is it?"

She handed him her own mobile. On the screen was a brief text message:

**Hello! It's Mr. Gabriel. Jenny and I are at the Church of St. Christopher. If the Doctor is not there- alone- in five hours, then Jenny will die. See you soon!**

He stared at it blankly for more than a minute. Then, "Martha, when did you get this?"

"Just a few minutes ago. I tried to tell you, but-"

The Doctor thought for a moment. "Church of St. Christopher- where is that?"

"We're headed towards the warehouses on the Thames," Jack said. "That church is this old one on the edge of town- part of it collapsed a few months ago, it's supposed to be demolished."

"But where is it?"

Jack thought briefly. "It's in the opposite direction. If I turned around now- maybe an hour away."

There was a tap on his shoulder- the Doctor tuned and Asiman's eyes were fixed on his. "Please, Doctor," he begged. "My wife. Please."

He came to a decision. "Drive fast. Warehouses first."

Jack slammed his foot even further down on the accelerator and the world was a blur. The Doctor rapped his fingers on the window glass in anxiety, and his mind turned at a speed comparable to that of the car.

They passed Gabriel and Jenny going the other way, but they were driving far too fast and everybody was far too preoccupied to notice.

* * *

Beginning to feel guilty ending with all these cliffhangers. But all these chapters serve a purpose, and the next chapter will answer questions instead of raising them. NEXT: ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE... ON FOX!

Thanks to everybody who reads, and a huge thanks to everybody who reviews- the feedback is what's keeping me going.


	11. Chapter 11

This chapter was incredibly difficult for me to get right, something that I think you'll find is quite evident. The epigraph for this chapter is also a neat little short story in itself, one of the 'legends' mentioned in the epigraph for the first chapter. Hopefully you'll realize who the two main characters in there are supposed to be.

* * *

11

Still the Same

_When the Sacred Warrior Xan was but a child, a great evil plagued the village of his birth._

_Once every year, a dark man would descend from the sky, and demand the soul of one person from the village. Into that person's soul he would deposit all of his own bad deeds, so that the Gods would never punish him for all that he had done. The bad deeds would flood the soul of the poor villager, and for days they would scream of the terrible things that flashed before their eyes. They would then die, in terrible agony._

_One year, the dark man descended and chose Xan's mother to be his sacrifice. As he made to look into her eyes and transfer his own evil into her soul, Xan jumped upon him with the hunting knife that children receive upon their eighth birthday. The dark man simply laughed and threw the child aside, and said:_

"_You think that you can kill me, child? I am as old as the Gods themselves and twice as wise. You will be nothing but dust in your grave before a day of age shows itself upon my face."_

_And, as if enraged by the dark man's blasphemy, the Gods' roar echoed throughout the village. This cry brought with it the vessel that the Gods use to sail the skies- an entire world concealed inside of a blue box._

_Out of the blue box stepped one of the strangest Gods that Xan had ever seen. He did not look like the tales, but instead appeared to resemble the people of the village, although his skin was white and his hair was red, and he only had two eyes. He wore a coat with pockets containing anything he could ever need, and a many-coloured cloth was wound about his neck. And the God spoke:_

"_Dark man," it said, "you have been using the souls of these innocent villagers to contain the darkness within your own mind. No more. I have been sent from the world of the Gods to bring you back and force you to stand trial for all that you have done."_

_The dark man laughed and seized the hunting knife out of the child Xan's hand. He charged the strange God and raised the blade high into the air._

_But the man parried the strike, and many other that followed it. Indeed, although the dark man was swift and his aim true, the strange God who travelled in the blue box matched him in his every action, and eventually threw him to the ground, where he bound the dark man with the long cloth about his neck._

_It was then that the young Xan approached the God, and learned the lesson that he would value most throughout his lifetime:_

"_O God," he asked, "Will this dark man's blood be spilled in payment for all that he has done to my villagers? For, although his life is a poor exchange, we would have it regardless."_

_The God replied, "Child, this man will be taken to the realm of the Gods, and there will judgment be passed. You must remember this: There will always be wicked men who take the lives of others, and they must be stopped. But if we take their lives in return, then we are no better than they are. For, although they may be evil and they may deserve death, it is not our place to give it to them- such decisions belong only to the Gods, and for a mortal man to judge who is worthy and who is unworthy of death is a grave affront to the Gods themselves."_

_Pol Alanaietha Xan Demos (The Tale of the Sacred Warrior Xan)_ Translated and edited by Professor Theo Pluerelle, University of Mars. Copyright 13,642. Excerpt courtesy of The Library.

* * *

She watched him writhe in pain, clutching his abdomen and coughing blood spasmodically.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?" she asked.

The pained grunts and hacking coughs segued into cruel laughter as he recovered, as always. "You're very smart, Jenny."

"My dad can help you. You don't have to suffer."

He did not stand, but leaned back and rested his hands against the cool stone floor of the church. "But I do need to suffer. I only have to endure for a little longer."

"What do you mean?"

When he smiled, she could see that his teeth were stained with blood. He had, however, managed not to get any of it on his clothing. "The decaying state of my body is making it more and more difficult for the regenerative process to manage. I expect that soon enough, I'll push myself a bit too hard, and my body will just quit entirely."

Jenny shifted her weight slightly. The handcuffs binding her clinked, and the shimmering blue dress rustled lightly. "Regenerative process?"

Gabriel took a deep breath and lifted himself to his feet. "Yep. Regenerative process."

Jenny was bound to a chair sitting behind the altar of the condemned church. The scent of dust and decay were heavy in the air, and their voices echoed slightly. The moisture from outside seeped in through a portion of the roof that had collapsed, scattering the floor with chunks of stone and wood.

"What do you want? Why are you doing this?" Her words echoed softly.

He thought for a moment before answering. "I want to turn your father into the one thing that he despises more than anything else. I want to show him that all of his faith, all of the values he holds dear are nothing but lies. But most of all… I want to show him that he hasn't changed. That he's still the same."

"And what does that mean?"

"It means that your father keeps his past a secret for a reason. Did he ever tell you exactly how Gallifrey was destroyed, Jenny?"

Jenny looked away.

He leaned on a shattered pew. "How long has it been?"

Without hesitation she answered, correctly, "Hour and twenty-six minutes."

Gabriel nodded.

"Maybe he's not coming."

He looked up sharply, and Jenny noted with amusement that this thought seemed to bother Gabriel much more than it did her.

"No," he said finally, "No. You're his only daughter. He's coming."

Jenny was unsure whether she wanted him to or not.

* * *

Lilith had stopped screaming and had taken to sobbing quietly.

She didn't notice when the elevator doors opened and a group of four men and one woman rushed out. One of the men made straight for her, shaking her gently by the shoulders and shouting something she could not hear. The noise in her head was far too loud.

The Doctor knelt next to Asiman, who was holding Lilith to him. They were both sobbing. "Asiman," he said softly. "Let her go."

Shakily, he lay her on the floor and swept her tangled hair out of her eyes. They were rolling about wildly in their sockets.

The Doctor lay his fingers on Lilith's temples and closed his eyes. The vampire's twitching slowed, her chest heaved, and her breathing became more regular. When her eyes opened, they were clear, but seemed to be looking at something that none of them could see.

"Lilith," he said. "What did Gabriel do to you?"

She drew a great whooping gasp. "H-he showed me. Everything. Everything I wanted to ever know and then more than I never wanted to. I see now."

"See what?"

"Everything. Time and space. A-and…. And…"

The Doctor frowned. "And what?"

"And you."

Asiman glared at the Doctor. Martha, Jack, and Mickey stepped forward and leaned closer.

Lilith continued. "Where there is good, there must always be evil. Where th-there is order, there m-must always be chaos. How can you… how can you… Deny your responsibilities and embrace others…? Y-your name…is hidden… but so is his… What does it mean…?" A harsh gasp. "You are a… friend? A child? You are so old. I am so old. B-but young. And alone…? No… no, there are others… Where?"

"Lilith," the Doctor spoke gently. "May I look inside your mind?"

"No," she said. "You'll burn up."

"I promise that I won't. Now, may I?"

"No," she repeated. "You'll burn up."

The Doctor looked up at Asiman, and the vampire nodded. He closed his eyes and concentrated again.

He spoke again, after a while. "Oh. Oh no. What has he done?"

Asiman tugged insistently at the Doctor's arm. "What? Doctor- is my wife okay?"

"I'm sorry, Asiman. I'm so sorry."

Lilith's eyes continued to roll wildly, mumbling feverishly.

"Gabriel has destroyed her mind."

There was a moment of quiet, and then Asiman lunged forward, placing his fingers against Lilith's temples and closing his eyes. The Doctor grabbed him and pulled him backwards, and the vampire struggled in his grip.

"Asiman… no! The same thing will…. happen… to you…"

"I can help her! She's my wife! She's still in there!"

"Yes, but her mind's been so overwhelmed that to look into it would burn you up."

"The way she's burning now."

"…yes. I'm sorry, Asiman."

He gave a harsh sob and clutched Lilith to him. She seemed to recognize him, and smiled weakly. "A…siman…"

The glimmer of hope in his eyes was all the more tortured for its futility. "Lilith! It's me, don't worry- I'm here. It's okay. I'm here."

Her eyes were staring past Asiman now, her mouth worked soundlessly. Finally, she spoke again. "Asiman… it's so loud… how can you stand it?"

"There's nothing, Lilith. It's all in your head. Come on. It's all in your head- it's not real-"

She giggled sharply, a sound highly reminiscent of the man who had done this to her. "Aha. Haha. It's all in my head. It's all in my head. Haha. That's the problem- itsallinmyheaditsallinmyheaditsallinmy-"

The Doctor leaned forward and placed a hand on her brow. Lilith fell silent. "Tell me," he said. "It's okay. You can tell me."

Her eyes shifted and focused, and then seemed to catch sight of him. "Doctor…"

"That's right. I'm here."

She smiled. "But you already know, don't you. And now so do I… it's so loud, Doctor. How… how can you stand _knowing?_ I-it's…" Her hands flew to her temples. The others watched on silently, helplessly.

"It's not easy, Lilith."

"Make it go away."

"I'm sorry, but… I can't."

Asiman looked up sharply. "You have to, Doctor! You said you could help her! Why can't you-"

"You need to understand," he interrupted. "The mind, no matter how complex, can be represented as an incredibly powerful computer. It can store information, it is programmed to react a certain way to a certain set of stimuli, it can be saved to disk, e-mailed, downloaded… and Gabriel knows this."

"So what's that mean?" Asimas asked.

"What he's done is he's literally rewired her brain- overwhelmed its circuits with data, destroyed the programming, and the reprogrammed it to stop me from fixing it. There's nothing I can do, Asiman- she's dying."

The silence was abject, save for Lilith's mutterings. "Doctor… time is a line? No… a circle? No… no, a… an ocean…? To be moved about in as we please… vast and great and dangerous… our ripples, tiny ripples in the vast ocean, they spread in all directions… changing time… but you… are unchanging. An island. L-like him…"

She stopped. Blood began to seep from her nose and ears- Lilith's human body was literally burning up, its mind and bodily functions accelerating furiously, until they snapped under the pressure.

"I can hear my heartbeat," she said. "It's like thunder in my ears." Indeed, the dull _thump-thump_ echoed throughout the Doctor's thoughts, as well as her own.

"Your body's breaking down," the Doctor said gently. "Lilith… it will be quiet soon enough."

"Him, too. So much noise… his heartbeat… The sound of it overwhelms his mind and dominates his thoughts…"

To the surprise of everybody in the room, the Doctor smiled. However, this was not his usual, jaunty grin- it was the grim satisfaction of knowing what needed to be done.

"That's what we've been missing. That clue. Gabriel's body is a genetically engineered fusion of hundreds of species throughout the galaxy," the Doctor said, matter-of-factly. "Of course… no matter how smart he is, that combination has to be incredibly unstable- he must literally be dying on his feet. Of course his body would have to strain itself to sustain the level of functionality he's been running at. But not for long. It has to give up sometime."

"You saying we just have to wait it out?" Jack asked.

"No. He's too smart for that. But…" he stroked the stubble on his chin thoughtfully, "If his body can be forced to work beyond its limits, odds are good that it might be unable to compensate. It would just shut down."

"Go," said Asiman.

They all turned to look at him. He was still holding what remained of Lilith.

"Stop him. She- she would have wanted you to. Please, just go, Doctor. You're the only one who can make things right."

"What about you?" Martha knelt next to him. "What will you do?"

He looked up at her, and there were tears streaming down his face. "I'm going to spend my wife's last few hours at her side. I'm going to- I'm going to stay here. Until the end."

The Doctor nodded solemnly, and beckoned his three companions into the elevator. Once the doors closed, he spoke to them: "Mickey. Martha. Jack. Go downtown, join Sarah Jane and Gwen, and do whatever you can to defuse the situation there. Mickey, what did she say?"

"All she told me was that they were holding government officials hostage inside one of the buildings."

"Right." The Doctor wiped the sweat from his face. "This is all Gabriel's fault. Those aliens _and_ the politicians need to be saved. You are absolutely not allowed to kill anybody, Jack."

Jack offered his handgun to the Doctor. "You're going after him."

The Doctor took the gun from Jack's hand and swiftly disassembled it, leaving the components lying on the floor. "I'm going to talk to him. One last time."

"Doctor…"

"Jack. I promise that Jenny will be fine."

"Yeah? And what about you?"

They stepped out into the dusty warehouse and walked into the sunlight, still tainted by the smoke rising from London.

"I'm the Doctor. And he needs help."

* * *

It was four hours and thirty-seven minutes after Gabriel had issued his ultimatum.

St. Christopher's Church was a part of London only by the virtue of being within the recently-expanded city limits. It had been built in the late 18th century as a village church several miles from what was then the city of London, and had served as a makeshift shelter during the blitz of World War II. After that, it had been designated as a site of significant historical importance, and had served as a tourist attraction until some six months ago, when a portion of the roof had collapsed. Since then, it had been scheduled for demolition, but in the intervening time period the paperwork had been lost in the labyrinth of bureaucracy, and the church still stood.

It was a dark, forbidding building. The masonry had become worn and darkened, its once beautiful stained glass had been either covered in grime, boarded up, or smashed in. One of the heavy wooden doors at the entrance had been kicked in, but the Doctor suspected that that had happened much more recently.

He had left Jack, Mickey, and Martha at the warehouse, and had jogged back to the alley beside the hotel where he had parked the TARDIS. Taking no chance, he had parked the machine two and a half kilometres away from the church, and had walked the rest of the way towards the abandoned building.

Now, he poked his head inside the ruined church. The first thing he noticed was the contrast between the shadows and the light of the place: Sunlight streamed in through the collapsed roof and broken windows, illuminating the ancient wooden pews and stone floor. At the same time, the boarded-up openings, support pillars, and the pile of rubble form the roof cast long shadows that could hide any number of things.

As he stepped over the threshold, he scanned the building quickly, and his eyes caught instantly the vibrant flash of blue and yellow behind the altar.

He stepped closer.

Jenny was shackled to a heavy wooden chair at the head of the church. For some reason, she was dressed in a bright blue evening gown and her hair was tied up in an elaborate knot behind her head. She looked not like a hostage, but rather a guest at a royal ball.

He broke into a jog.

"Jenny? Jenny! Are you alright!?"

"Dad! It's a trap!" she shouted.

He stopped dead.

"Iiiit's meeeeeee!"

One of the shapes hidden in the shadows moved, in a flash of black and a pale, smiling face. Gabriel launched himself headlong at the Doctor, bringing his hand across in a brutal arc, and striking him full across the face.

The two flew through the air, the Doctor crashing heavily to the ground and Gabriel rolling and leaping quickly to his feet.

The second blow came from above, and this time it was the Doctor who rolled sharply, dodging the strike and lifting himself up. Something metal struck the stone floor behind him.

Gabriel came at the Doctor again, swinging the weapon in his hand in wild, erratic strikes. He was hit in the side, dodged a swing aimed at his head, and used his arm to deflect another targeting his neck.

Finally, sharpening his mind in an instant of absolute focus, his right arm darted forward and wrested the object from Gabriel's grasp. The Doctor spun and threw his weight into the madman, separating the two of them and throwing them both to the ground.

"I didn't come to fight," he said. "I came to talk."

"No, you came to _argue_," Gabriel clarified haughtily. "And that's the same thing. But with words. I guess."

"Words can hurt," the Doctor said.

"The pen is sharper than the sword, hm?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "Then I suppose you won't be needing that, then."

The Doctor looked down at the weapon he had managed to wrest from Gabriel. It was one of the two duelling swords that he always carried with him, in a black leather sheath with a steel tip. The sheath was still attached to a belt meant to be worn around the waist. Gabriel was wearing the other one.

He shrugged and strapped the belt on. Steel tapped against the outside of his calf.

"By putting that belt on, you acknowledge that you may need it at some point in the future. Which means that you are willing to fight, Doctor, whether you say so or not."

"Ah, but that doesn't mean I want to. And it doesn't mean that I'm not willing to settle this by other means."

"Dad, just kill him!" Jenny shouted from the church's altar. "Don't give him a chance to talk, he knows that's what you're going to do!"

"Quiet, Jenny," said Gabriel, "The grownups are talking." Then he turned back to the Doctor. "No, if you were going to kill me, you'd have done it a long time ago."

Although the two were only metres apart, neither of them made any move towards or away from the other. Their eyes were locked, and although their body language looked deceptively casual, both were ready to spring forward at any moment.

"I don't work that way. I'm the Doctor, and I'm here to help you-"

"No, no, no," Gabriel interrupted, "Don't start with that nonsense. Tell the truth, Doctor, for once. Had I been anybody else… I would be dead right now, wouldn't I?"

His eyes challenged the Doctor to lie.

"Yes," he admitted. "The things you've done… are nothing short of an abomination. Had you been anybody else, I would have killed you."

Gabriel burst into harsh laughter. "But you just couldn't do it, could you? You had to let me go. And why was that?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said quietly.

Gabriel sighed and turned his back on the Doctor, walking up the aisle that led to the altar. "Your daughter was right. You should have just killed me. But you couldn't. Tell her why."

"I… I…"

"TELL HER WHY!" he screamed, suddenly enraged. "TELL HER WHY THOSE PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE OF YOU!"

There was a long silence. Jenny looked up at her father. "Dad…"

"Because I thought I could help you!" he replied angrily. "Because… because you're better than this. Because you're brilliant."

Gabriel stood next to Jenny and smiled. "You see? There it is, my dear. The truth comes out. Your father is prejudiced!"

"Gabriel!" he pleaded, "You've won, okay? The game's over, and you win! You beat me!"

"Tough!" he burst back, "You go on and on about how much you value life, but the truth is… you value intelligence even more. And the one person in all the universe who's a match for you... how _could_ you kill me? After all I'm so smart. So very _clever._"

The Doctor looked him in the eyes and spoke calmly. "I've given you so many chances… too many chances. Because you're so much like me. But I see now that maybe that's not such a good thing. Nobody else is going to die."

Gabriel chuckled malevolently. "Huh. Heh. Haha."

"What?"

"Here, Doctor." He waved his hand, as if to encompass the entire city. "Another example of people dying because you refuse to compromise your beliefs." He sat down on a wooden pew and laughed some more.

The Doctor wasn't fooled by Gabriel's deceptively casual movements. He laid a hand on the hilt of the duelling sword strapped to his waist. "What's your point? You keep going on and on and on about nothing, trying so very hard to get inside my head, but why? Why do you care? What do you want?"

Perhaps for the first time the Doctor had ever seen him, he was serious. "Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"Maybe I have. But I want to hear you say it."

But Gabriel didn't answer; he continued speaking more to himself than to the Doctor. "Because now, Doctor, is your last chance. Would you let the only family you have die- because you went so far as to feel mercy for a psychopath?" He bounded up to the altar and placed his hands on Jenny's shoulders.

"I don't know about mercy." The Doctor fought to keep the anger out of his voice.

"Shut up," he snapped, "You shut up. No more talking. No more games- the games are over. If you're so stupid as to continue with your damn questions, trying to talk your way out of things… you only have one option left. You have no choice!"

And now it was the Doctor's turn to smile. "I always have a choice, Gabriel."

"…hm." For a moment, he seemed genuinely cowed. Then that wretched grin plastered itself on his face again, and the slid the gleaming sword from its scabbard at his waist. "But what if all your options end with death? What then?"

He lay the blade against Jenny's throat.

"Don't do this, just-"

"No!" he pressed harder, and Jenny's brow contorted in pain. A dribble of blood ran off the point of the sword. "No, it's far too late for that. I'm laying it on the line, plain and simple. One of us is going to have to die. And you are going to decide who it is. Will it be me?"

He snapped the blade away from Jenny's throat, and poised it over his own.

"You?"

He twirled the sword artfully, and his feet arranged themselves into a fighting stance.

"Or your daughter?"

The look in his eyes told the Doctor that there was no reasoning with him now, not anymore. Gabriel burst into liquid motion and covered the ground between himself and the Doctor with impossible speed, raising the weapon in his hand in a smooth upward arc.

The immaculately crafted duelling sword made the most musical sound as it slid from its sheath.

* * *

The British Alien Embassy was a smooth glassy building that had been constructed with an eye to the futuristic world it represented. Several of the world's major governments had built embassies with the goal towards improving extraterrestrial relations but, unbeknownst to them, the aliens actually living on Earth had seen them as a joke.

The British Embassy was the public front for the nation's dealings with aliens. Behind the scenes were UNIT, the existence and purpose of which were widely known, and Torchwood, which existed and operated in absolute secrecy. All three organizations were now involved in the hostage situation that had developed inside the embassy.

The government workers inside the building had been taken hostage by the group of aliens that had been terrorizing the city on Gabriel's orders. UNIT had responded almost immediately, surrounding the building and establishing a perimeter. By the time that Jack, Martha, and Mickey arrived, a strike team was being assembled and snipers were perched on nearby rooftops, looking to pick off the aliens inside.

"Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood. What the hell is going on here?"

"Captain! Over here!" Sarah Jane waved him over to where she was standing with Gwen, outside a sleek black UNIT operations truck. The three of them hurried over.

"Jack," Gwen said, "They've decided that this is a matter of global security. They're sending in a strike team to take out the aliens inside."

"And by 'take out,' you mean…?"

"Jack, they're going to kill them!" she burst. "We tried negotiating, and it's very obvious that they aren't themselves. I think Gabriel's done something to them, and now they're going to die because of it."

Jack swore and made to burst into the security truck, but before he could throw the door open a woman wearing a general's uniform stepped out of it.

"Mr. Harkness," she said, "What are you doing here? I don't recall requesting assistance from Torchwood. And certainly not from the Torchwood base in Cardiff."

"Listen," he demanded, "You can't send in the strike team just yet. Those aliens in there are not acting of their own accord. We have reason to believe that they are being… controlled… by the same mastermind who's behind the recent string of terrorist attacks on London."

She frowned. "Our intelligence seems to indicate that Mahmud Helou is inside that building. Which means we will be going in regardless."

He swore. This must be how the Doctor felt talking to him. "_Listen to me! _Mahmud Helou is not behind those attacks! Helou is dead! What you're looking at is a Malsangurian who is occupying Helou's body- you have files on them, I'm sure. Pull them up."

"Indeed we do, Mr. Harkness." Jack's temporary relief was dispelled when she raised a walkie-talkie to her lips and said sharply, "Five minutes 'til entry. Snipers, line up your shots."

"What!? I just told you it's not-"

"That's right, Harkness," she snapped. "If Helou is indeed dead, then that means we are now dealing with a murderer, who has taken government hostages. Now _stay out of our way._"

She disappeared back into the truck.

"Stubborn fools," Sarah Jane said. "Perhaps if we can somehow get a message into the aliens…"

"Jack, what do we do?" Gwen asked.

He looked at his watch. Four minutes, thirty seconds. If he was any other person, what he was doing would be suicide. As it was he had no plan, just one handgun, and next to no hope of success.

But what did he have to lose?

"Right," he said. 'I am making an executive decision."

And with that he sprinted headlong towards the security perimeter, vaulted the barricade, and powered towards the glass door of the building. He could almost hear the hasty questions, barked orders, and frenzied action. They really had only one option- but if he could just make it to those doors in time…

He jumped.

A shot rang out.

One full metal jacket military-issue rifle round punctured his left lung, smashed into his ribcage, and rattled around inside his chest. His heart was damaged irreparably in an instant.

Jack Harkness smashed through the sliding glass doors of the British Alien Embassy and hit the tiled floor hard.

After a few seconds, he died.

After a few more, he woke up.

He jumped to his feet and threw himself behind a marble pillar, out of the view of the sharpshooters outside. He could just imagine the confused sniper: _But I hit him! I swear I did!_

He checked his watch again. Four minutes. Taking care not to cross any places where the snipers would be offered a clear shot, he bolted across the floor covered with shattered glass and ran for the stylish-looking staircase that led to the upper floors.

The conference room was on the third floor, and the hostage government workers were seated in the seats around the table. The room's design reflected the optimistic attitudes with which the embassy was built, and a vaulted ceiling and panoramic glass windows allowed sunlight to stream inside.

It also allowed the strike teams a handy entrance and ensured that the UNIT sharpshooters had several clear shots. Common sense dictated that the room was a terrible location to hold hostages, and yet here the aliens were, three minutes and thirty seconds from being completely wiped out.

Jack stepped into the room with his hands held high above his head. A Slitheen and a Malsangurian swivelled their automatic weapons to point at him.

"Captain Jack Harkness." Athead, in the body of Mahmud Helou, was standing at the head of the conference table, behind the Minister of Extraterrestrial Affairs. "We saw you on your way in."

"Yeah, cool. Athead, listen to me-"

"No, you listen first." He stepped out from behind the table and circled around to Jack. In one hand he was holding a laser pistol, and the other was clutching some strange bundle to his chest. "Just take a seat and we'll have a nice little chat."

"There's no time! UNIT is sending in a strike team. They're not negotiating with you. They're coming in here to kill you." There were three minutes now.

Athead said nothing, but stepped to the window and looked out at the soliders below. He shifted the bundle in his arms slightly and then walked back to the table.

"You have to give yourself up. I know it sounds like I'm trying to trick you, but it's your only hope right now. UNIT tends to answer to the Doctor- I'm sure he'll be happy to listen to whatever demands you might have, and he can help you-"

Athead interrupted him again, and for the first time Jack noticed something wrong with the way he spoke. "You think I _want_ anything out of this?"

Jack blinked. "Well… yeah."

Two and a half minutes

He smiled, and that grin seemed kind of familiar, too. He reached across the conference table, and for the first time Jack noticed the steel briefcase sitting on top of it. He pointed his handgun at Athead's face, but the vampire just laughed and raised the bundle in his arms to shield himself.

The locks on the briefcase snapped open, and he flipped the lid up.

"Oh, hell…"

Settled snugly in the briefcase was a jumble of wires and pipes that could only be some sort of bomb. An LED timer on top of the device was counting down- the display currently read 2:30. There were two minutes until the strike team entered the building.

"I don't want anything out of this, Jack, not really. This whole affair's just to distract you from the place where the _real_ game is." The vampire's smile widened. "A feint."

"But you'll die!" Jack shouted. He looked at all of the aliens. "You'll all die!"

"I don't care."

Jack looked into the Malsangurian's eyes, and suddenly he saw. "…Gabriel?"

"Now you're getting it."

There was now one minute and thirty seconds before everything went to hell.

The various ministers and hostages at the table all began squabbling and shouting at once, but Jack heard none of them. "What have you done?" he asked.

Athead- or was it Gabriel- shrugged. "Anything is possible if you put your mind to it." He snickered.

"You killed him," Jack said. "You killed all of them, didn't you?"

"Oh how I wish I could just kill you. It would be _so_ much easier. But no. If I want to keep you out of my business, I have to go and set up all this just so you can go off and play in the corner while the grownups are talking."

Jack's eyes darted to the briefcase. If he could just grab it, then there was a chance he could get out of the building and into an area where it could explode without killing anybody. Well- it wouldn't kill anybody permanently.

But he was running out of time. There was a minute left.

"So you've done your job. I'm distracted. So how about you let these people go, okay?"

London police officer Mahmud Helou's body, possessed by the psychic energy being Athead, whose mind had been corrupted by the psychopathic mastermind Gabriel, shook his head. "Well… I kind of lied. There is another reason I'm doing this."

Jack decided he had no time to listen. He launched himself across the room, raised his handgun, and put two bullets in the skulls of aliens who raised their guns to track him.

"Because it's fun!"

Thirty seconds.

In one deft move, he slammed the briefcase shut and swept it off the table. A Slitheen made to shoot him- Jack was faster, and it fell to the ground. He swivelled to face whatever remained of Mahmud Helou with the full intention of blasting its head off of its body.

He was a second away from pulling the trigger when the possessed vampire thrust its hands- and the bundle in its hands- out in front of it to shield itself. For the first time, Jack saw just what it was.

"You monster," he whispered.

Fifteen heavily armed elite UNIT soldiers crashed through the glass doors three floors below them and stormed up the stairs. At the exact same time, fifteen more soldiers leapt from the buildings roof, swung at the end of their tethers, and crashed feet first through the glass windows of the conference room.

Gabriel (for it was a piece of Gabriel, inside the mind of the thing) looked Jack in the eyes and laughed wildly.

* * *

She was gone.

Asiman had had to do it himself, in the end. Her screams had wrenched his ears and his heart, more painful than if it had been he who was dying on the floor. He had looked into her eyes and seen the pain in them- and the terrible knowledge that they reflected. For a second, Lilith's eyes met his, and there seemed to be an unspoken plea there.

And so, Asiman had bent down, kissed her living lips one last time, and twisted his wife's neck until it snapped.

All was silent now- the terrible screams echoed only in his head, all the louder for the silence around him. He hadn't moved in hours, just sitting there holding her, feeling her body go cold.

It was the most painful thing he had ever experienced.

He brushed a lock of fiery red hair from her cold brow. Asiman supposed that he should do something about putting her to rest- but it was just an empty corpse. Neither of them had ever had much regard for their previous empty shells, and had simply left them to rot after leaping from body to body.

This was different, somehow. He picked her up and carried her to their private bedroom, laying her softly on the bed. He tucked her hair behind her ears, put a pillow underneath her head, and closed her eyes. She could have been sleeping. Asiman bent down and picked up her hands, with the intent of folding them over her chest.

It was only then that he noticed something clutched in one of them.

Asiman pried her clenched fingers apart and withdrew the yellow piece of paper- it was a Post-It note. He smoothed the tiny piece of paper and read the message in Gabriel's handwriting.

WHERE IS YOUR DAUGHTER ELIZABETH?

For a moment, he only stood there, horrified. It was only now that he truly comprehended what the silence meant- that he was alone.

Completely.

The crib where their youngest child usually slept was empty, but he had been too overwhelmed by his grief to even realize it.

A terrible rage overtook him. Even his sorrow for his wife and his children was forgotten, and all that he could think about was his hatred for Gabriel. This man- no, this _monster_- who had shown up out of nowhere and, in a few short months, had destroyed everything that Asiman had held dear?

His own life didn't matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was that Gabriel's be ended.

This thought ran through his head over and over as he stepped out of the elevator, left the warehouse, and vaulted onto the rooftops.

Asiman streaked across the city with a predator's speed one last time.

* * *

He blocked another flurry of swings, driven backward by the force of the blows. Sparks flew as the two blades met and ground against each other over and over. Gabriel pressed further, swinging madly and overwhelming the Doctor, who barely managed to move his own blade in time to block the strikes. The flat of Gabriel's sword made sound contact with the Doctor's ribs. He was just toying now.

"Alright, I get it," the Doctor said, "Just kill me already and be done with it."

"Oh, where's the fun in that?" Gabriel stepped backward so that there was a space between them. "You need to fight back. You gotta get _mad_. Trust me, it's great fun."

The Doctor gripped the hilt of the duelling sword tightly. "Nobody else needs to die. You've proven you're better than I am. So just finish your game and kill me already, if that'll stop you."

"Ah. It's useless," Gabriel sighed after a moment's contemplation. "After all, you've never killed me before, and God knows I deserved it. Oh well."

He skipped up to the altar where Jenny was still bound. "But if you won't fight back, then I guess I'll have to _make_ you angry. Here, watch this."

Gabriel buried the point of his sword into Jenny's shoulder. She cried out briefly in pain, and then caught herself. "Dad… he's… just kill him…"

He snickered. "Even your own daughter- your own flesh and blood- thinks I deserve to die. So why won't you kill me? Don't you hate me enough yet?"

"I…I…can't." The Doctor stammered, "I can't kill you because… you're so much like I am… you could be the same as I am…"

More than anything else, Gabriel was enraged by this. "I am _nothing_ like you!" he shrieked. "I am the exact _opposite_! You _stupid_ fool, haven't you figured this out yet?"

The Doctor said nothing, but hung his head.

"Oh. Oh!" An expression of joyful malice worked its way across Gabriel's features. "That's why, isn't it. You actually have figured it out. And that's why you can't kill me- it would only be finishing the job!"

"No," the Doctor said. "it's not like that!"

"But it is! You killed my people, Doctor, and now you can't bring yourself to stop me from my revenge! You deserve this!" Peals of mad laughter echoed throughout the building. "Look, Jenny! Look at your dear, holy father and see what he has become! What he truly is!"

The look of suffering on the Doctor's face was so abject that Jenny was beyond words. Tears flowed down the face of both father and daughter, and Gabriel laughed all the more.

"Stop it," the Doctor said hoarsely. "Don't."

"Oh, but I will! That's how I can hurt you, Doctor. By reminding you of what you really are."

The Doctor stood quietly and stepped towards Gabriel, raising the sword in his hand to point at his heart. "Was all of this for nothing, then?"

"Yes," he smiled savagely. "Yes, it was." He turned Jenny's head so that her eyes met his. "You see, my darling, the one thing that I wanted out of all of this was not to prove that I was _better_ than the Doctor, but rather, that the Doctor was no better than I. The semantic difference in that sentence is what you really want to watch out for."

"So you've won your game," the Doctor snarled, "And proved how worthless I am. How worthless everything I do is. What do you want?"

Gabriel leapt from the altar to the floor of the church and tossed his sword into the air, where it spun in a spiral of steel and light. "I want to bring you back down to what you were. To make you just like me again." He caught the sword.

So you've done it. You've won."

Gabriel smiled his wicked smile. "I had the advantage the whole time, Doctor, because I know you. And you're not some avenging angel, or angelic savior, or enlightened saint. You're just a murderer."

The light reflected hypnotically off the metal of their blades, and a new music rose from the sound of them clashing together.

* * *

OH MY GOD TRIPLE CLIFFHANGER Hahaha, I'm such an asshole.

Anyways, the quick cuts, simultaneous action, and frantic pace in this chapter were all meant to convey a sense of constant climax- a tension rising and rising but never breaking, with the feeling that something terrible is just around the corner. This is where we get to see an example of the true chaos caused by Gabriel's rampage, I think.

Anyways, the next chapter is definitely the one you've all been waiting for, and I can only hope that it's a bit easier to write than this one was.


	12. Chapter 12

12

Rid of Me Forever

_When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever, for one moment, accepts it._

_- Prof. River Song_

* * *

It seemed like the world was ending around him. It always did.

Black-booted feet crashed through the glass walls, and tromped up the stairs. The corpse of Mahmud Helou continued to smile grotesquely, an infant clutched protectively in front of his chest.

He had precious little time to act. That bomb on the conference table was ticking, and the entire building would go up in a matter of seconds. There was nothing Jack could do for the aliens or politicians, and he doubted that the UNIT troops would spare him a second glance.

But he would be damned if he couldn't at least save somebody here today.

Jack aimed low and blew Helou's kneecap out the back of his calf. He fell forward, and Jack threw himself underneath the Gabriel-thing so that it would not fall on the child. He wrapped his hands around the baby.

"You might not die, but… she… will!" The thing's hands clenched tighter around the child, suffocating it. Around them, the UNIT troops started shooting, and the possessed aliens fired back. The infant's cries of pain were lost in the din.

Jack shoved an elbow into the thing's chest, trying to prevent it getting enough leverage to snap the child's neck. Jack let go of the baby for a split second, enough to bring his arm around and shove it- and the handgun he was still holding- underneath the Gabriel-thing's chin.

"Oh, no-"

The bullet punched a tiny hole in the thing's neck and a considerably larger hole in the top of its skull. Its struggles ceased immediately. Jack bent down, picked up the child, and spared an instant to glance at the suitcase on the conference table.

The clock was still counting down- it was at 10:00 now. Ten seconds.

Jack sighed. It never got any easier.

He took a running jump and launched himself out of one of the already-shattered windows. Jack took care to roll over in midair so that the he was underneath the child.

He didn't die upon hitting the ground- that was a good sign. It meant that the child likely survived with him to cushion its fall. There were a short few seconds of incredible pain, people running, and then heat and fire. Then he died.

Jack woke up a good thirty metres from where he had landed. He was lying on what felt like asphalt, and Martha Jones was sitting next to him. He heaved himself up on his elbows and turned to look at the building he had just jumped out of- it was engulfed in flames. He could hear sirens in the distance. Fire engines and ambulances.

"Martha- what happened?"

She looked down at him. "UNIT sent the strike team in. Few seconds later, you jumped out of the building. Few seconds after that, the whole place went up. Jack, what went on in there?"

"Gabriel," he spat. "He got to them. They were possessed, or hypnotized, or something. There was a bomb on the table- he knew that UNIT was coming in. Martha, what happened to-"

"The baby?" she gestured over her shoulder. "Sarah Jane and Gwen are looking after it. It's doing fine. Better than it should be. I had a look at it, Jack, and that child's not human. Remember that baby that disappeared? Elizabeth? That's her body, but there's a vampire inside of it."

"Doesn't matter," Jack coughed, "Hasn't done anything wrong." He vaulted to his feet. "Martha, we need to get to the car."

She stood up with him. "What? Why?"

"I talked with Gabriel- or part of him- while I was in there. This whole thing was a ruse, Martha, to keep us from helping the Doctor. He's in some serious trouble right now, and we need to get over to that church."

Sarah Jane and Gwen, seeing him on his feet, rushed over. Gwen was holding the child he had saved. "Jack, what's going on?"

"Sarah, Gwen, I need you to stay here. Take care of the baby, make sure UNIT doesn't do anything stupid.

He hurried over to the car they had arrived in. Mickey was leaning against it, watching the firefighting crews battle the flames swathing the building.

"You're off to help the Doctor, then?" Mickey asked.

"Yep."

He nodded after a moment, and jerked his head at Sarah Jane and Gwen. "I'll look after them. You go."

Jack smiled briefly, clapped Mickey's shoulder, and climbed into the car.

"But where are you going?" Sarah Jane asked.

"The Doctor needs our help. No, you can't come, and yes, it is dangerous. Gabriel might have planted more distractions around here, and you two need to tell UNIT what's really going on." Martha got in next to him.

"Jack," Gwen said, "Be careful."

"Never do," he smiled.

"Captain," said Sarah Jane, "Good luck."

"Gonna need it." He wasn't smiling anymore. Jack floored the accelerator, and sped away to St. Christopher's Church.

* * *

The two continued their intricate dance across the light and shadows splayed across the ancient stone floor that was still younger than both of them. Feet skipped lightly off of tiles, never in one place for more than a second, and their swords swung in cold arcs, the glinting light and cast sparks lending a hypnotic rhythm to the dance.

"You're far too hesitant," Gabriel remarked as he swept away a blow aimed at his knees and drove forward in a piercing stab. "You need to lose yourself in the flow of battle; focusing only on what needs to be done."

"You're much too impulsive." The Doctor flitted backwards and to the side, and the point of Gabriel's sword swished past him. He used his own blade to get underneath Gabriel's and lift it up and out of his hands. "Lose yourself in the battle and you lose your mind; unable to think, to analyse, you are at a disadvantage."

Gabriel moved towards the Doctor even as his blade was shoved away, moving forward and driving the point of his elbow into the Doctor's stomach, sending him sprawling. "But then, where's the motivation? The one motivated by passion is much more likely to prevail than the one who is motivated by logic."

The Doctor rolled sharply, and the point of Gabriel's sword shattered the stone where his neck had been seconds before. As Gabriel wrenched the blade out of the ground, the Doctor darted forward and hip-checked him, sending him sliding across the floor and into one of the stone pillars holding up the shattered roof. "But the one motivated by his emotions has his thoughts clouded by those emotions. He is far more likely to make a mistake."

Gabriel stopped for a moment. His hair, which had been styled neatly, was now a wiry black mess jutting up wildly and hanging in front of his face. The designer suit he had been wearing was covered in dust and had already started to tear in places. "Well, then," he said, "What motivates you, Doctor? Logic, or emotion?"

The Doctor tried not to show his fatigue. He was getting too old for this. "Both," he said. "My belief in doing what is right, and the logic that keeps me from losing myself in that emotion."

Gabriel nodded. "Now, do you know what your problem is?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed, and he raised his sword in front of him.

"You don't hate me enough."

"I hate you plenty, don't you worry."

The Doctor was suddenly forced to leap backwards as Gabriel propelled himself off of the pillar behind him and into the air. As he fell, he swung his sword with him, and the Doctor could hear it slice through the air just beside him.

The two exchanged blows again, Gabriel on the attack. He twirled the sword artfully, each strike smoothly transitioning to the next, carving bright circles in the dark of the church. The Doctor blocked them with grim determination, his blade moving quickly to where it needed to be.

"I dunno, Doctor. Your heart really doesn't seem to be in this." Gabriel easily parried a half-hearted stab, and redoubled his efforts. "I would say that you're only trying to wound me- not kill me. Now, why could that be?"

"Well, isn't it obvious?" The Doctor stopped three quick blows in succession, the blades clanging loudly in the silence. "I know by now that the only reason you're doing all of this is to show me just how flimsy my moral beliefs really are. Me killing you would be your ultimate victory."

"Maybe," Gabriel said, "But maybe it's just because if you kill me, then you will show just how similar you and I are. After all, you've spent your whole life desperately clinging on to what makes us different, and-"

Mid-sentence, he spun and lunged forward, catching the Doctor just on the inside of his right arm. The metal sliced through his coat and cut open his right side, bouncing off his ribcage.

"-maybe you just can't stand to see how much the two of us are really alike."

The Doctor counterattacked, stepping forward and jabbing towards Gabriel's stomach. He was too slow- Gabriel jumped aside and the Doctor hit nothing but air.

"You don't hate me enough," he repeated. "But what happens if you do?"

Gabriel skipped toward the altar where Jenny was tied up, and it was only a second too late that the Doctor realized what he was doing. He bolted after him, but was too far behind to stop him.

He stood behind Jenny, smiling, sword held high. The Doctor skidded to a halt. "If you hurt her…"

"You'll kill me?" Gabriel asked. He shrugged. "I certainly hope so."

And with that, he ran her through.

Jenny screamed in pain, then caught herself and clenched her jaw shut in stoic silence. For one moment, frozen in time, they stood there: The Doctor gazing up helplessly, Gabriel smiling down on him coolly, and a gleaming silver point jutting out of Jenny's chest, just above her left breast.

And then Jenny heaved a dry sob, and a dribble of blood ran from her nose.

The Doctor was screaming now, too, in wordless rage, sprinting and leaping at the _monster_ who had destroyed so many lives.

Gabriel moved backwards, and the now-bloody sword slid smoothly from the wound in Jenny's back, a gout of blood accompanying it. Jenny lurched forward and collapsed, and Gabriel leapt back, flinging the sword in front of his face and narrowly blocking a strike that would have sliced his head from his shoulders.

"Now we're talking!" That savage glee was still tainting his voice. To have that tone, like a child opening Christmas presents, and to have committed those _atrocities_- to have stabbed his daughter so callously- to have such disregard for any life at all-

The Doctor could focus on nothing but how much he wanted this man dead.

He pressed forward, the blade in his hands swinging up and down in savage strikes, his arms pistoning furiously. Gabriel was driven steadily backwards, unable to keep pace with the hail of blows, barely blocking each one.

Gabriel's back came in contact with the wall.

"You… Will…Never… Hurt… Anybody… Again!" He punctuated each word with another swing, battering savagely now at the sword held protectively in front of Gabriel's face.

Gabriel finally managed to catch the Doctor's sword on his own, and flung their arms to the side, sending both blades clattering to the floor. "Heh- Ha! Doctor, look at wha-"

He didn't stop for an instant. At least three fingers in his right hand broke on the first punch, but Gabriel felt it more: his head was flung backwards and collided with the stone wall with a sick _thud_. He couldn't stop himself. One hand grasped the man's collar, and the other worked wildly up and down, shattering Gabriel's nose, his orbital bone, his jaw-

"Stop!"

It was only Jenny's voice that snapped him out of the haze he had been in. Still tied to the chair, she had fallen over, and now lay in a slowly spreading pool of her own blood.

"You'll kill him," she choked out. "And… you don't want that."

Another moment, frozen in time. Gabriel splayed, half standing and half sitting, against the stone wall, his eyes locked with the Doctor standing over him, panting harshly, clutching his wounded hand to his chest.

Like the other, the moment broke. Gabriel launched himself across the floor, snatching one of his duelling swords up in his hand. He tried to run to a safe distance, but stumbled and crashed to the floor again in a sort of half-roll, half-pratfall. He staggered to his feet, giggling.

The Doctor spared a moment for his injured hand. The regenerative energy had taken hold, but the breaks were serious. They healed slowly. It would probably several hours before it would be back to normal. "No," he said to Jenny. "I do. But I don't want it to be because I lost control and let my anger guide me. I want it to be because I know he needs to die, and because I have the willpower to do what needs to be done."

Some sort of regenerative energy was working on Gabriel's face as well, but with a much heftier price. He screamed in agony and clawed at his face as bones cracked back into place, skin knit back together, and bruises swelled, darkened, and then vanished.

"Gabriel," said the Doctor. "I'm sorry. I really am."

He swooped down and snatched the second sword from the ground in a running jump as his feet left the ground and landed five metres ahead. The Doctor was liquid motion, the sword raised in a smooth semicircle that began at his waist and ended as an extension of his shoulders- a killing blow.

At least, it would have been, had Gabriel not managed to place his own blade in its path. The two clanged off each other clumsily, Gabriel staggering backwards with the force of the blow. He retaliated, stepping forwards and bringing his sword down in a crude slash.

The Doctor blocked it effortlessly, the two blades locked overhead. Their faces were now inches apart, the Doctor's cold and logical; Gabriel's smeared with blood and falling apart at the seams. Blood leaked from his ears and eye sockets.

"What's the difference," he hissed, "If you kill me because I deserve it? What if you kill me just because you hate me? Either way, you're taking a life."

"Because," the Doctor said, "The one thing I would never, ever do is kill somebody because I want to. No matter what they've done… I can't _want_ to kill…"

"Because then you would be a failure." Gabriel smirked, and there was blood in that smile now, too. "Because then you'd still be the same. A murderer."

"No…"

"Because then you'd be-"

"No…!"

"Like ME!"

With a sudden surge of strength, Gabriel wrested the blades apart. His strike this time was sure and smooth, and the Doctor only barely managed to parry it. The two danced again, only this time there was a hint of frantic desperation in the dance, as the swords snapped against each other and their feet tapped a little faster on the cold stone.

"Kill me."

A block, a parry, a failed thrust. The Doctor was beaten back by this new fury- weren't wounded animals the most dangerous ones?

"Kill me."

Gabriel's eyes were glowing now- literally. There was a fire of pent up energy inside them that couldn't be contained any longer. He was dying on his feet.

"Kill me!"

The blades clanged together overhead, and then at their sides, and then directly in front of them. Gabriel and the Doctor pressed forward at the same time, and the duelling swords designed for this purpose locked for the last time.

"KILL ME!"

But the Doctor wavered. "Am I… so weak? I thought I'd come so far… was it all for nothing?"

"Yes," Gabriel spat. "You killed my people. You will always be a murderer."

"I… I can't." He looked at Jenny. "I'm sorry," he said. "I was weak."

For a second, the grief on Gabriel's face was equal to that of the Doctor's. "Fine." The grief turned to resignation. "I still have one more trick."

He fell backwards, and then lunged forward. The sword in his hands flicked the one in the Doctor's hands downwards, and he collapsed to his knees. He tossed his own blade aside carelessly.

The tip of the sword in the Doctor's hand rested in the hollow of Gabriel's neck. His black eyes looked into the Doctor's own. "All it takes is a little flick of the wrist," he stated flatly. "And you'd be rid of me forever."

But still the Doctor did nothing.

"Do it."

It was happening again, wasn't it?

"Now."

The Doctor dropped the weapon. "No."

In an instant, Gabriel's foot shot out and sent the Doctor crashing to the ground. His hand shot out towards the sword- still falling- and caught it, and he was poised on top of the Doctor, ready to strike.

"So you pay with your own life," he declared triumphantly, "For your unwillingness to take mine. The almighty Doctor, laid low at last." He raised the blade in the air.

The Doctor didn't flinch. "Oh, I don't think so."

Gabriel cocked an eyebrow.

The Doctor smiled, echoing Gabriel mere moments before. "Kill me."

The blade trembled ever so slightly.

"Do it. Now."

Gabriel's eyes were wide, his teeth clenched.

"Now!"

He stabbed downwards.

The Doctor's eyes suddenly flicked to something over Gabriel's shoulder, and he shouted- "No. No!"

The sword stabbed into the ground next to the Doctor's left ear- a clean miss. With the last vestiges of his strength, Gabriel pulled it from the ground and made to stab again- but he could not summon the focus to do so. It fell uselessly from his whitening fingers.

One final moment.

The Doctor's plea ignored, a look of horror on his face. Savage satisfaction in Jenny's. And Gabriel, still poised in the final throes of combat, seemingly preparing for the finishing blow-

And Asiman, directly behind and beside him, predator's teeth sunk into the madman's throat, a tiny dribble of blood leaking from between those lips.

It was Asiman the broke the silence. Unable to drink any more, he stood shakily and wiped his mouth. "Such power," he said quietly.

Gabriel's mouth worked soundlessly as the Doctor shoved him aside and stood up. His fingers scrabbled against the stone floor and clutched desperately at the holes in his neck, and he struggled to lift himself to his feet. He could not, and sank back to his knees.

The look in his eyes was not sadness, or pain, or even peace. No, Gabriel was glaring at Asiman with a look of purest hatred. "You… ruined it! You… don't… understand." he forced out. With the very last of his strength, he pointed at the Doctor.

"He was supposed to do it."

Gabriel slumped to the side and fell onto the cold stone tile. The Doctor felt him die- it was like a light in the next room being turned off.

Asiman laughed hoarsely and took a running kick at Gabriel's ribs. Several snapped. "You deserved it!" he shouted. "You deserved _worse_! You monster! My wife… my children…" He looked up at where Jenny still lay. "Thank you."

"What did she do?" the Doctor hurried to untie her, and helped her to her feet.

"Let 'm in." she mumbled. "Vampires 'r invited in."

Asiman propped up her other shoulder, so that she was carried between him and the Doctor. "It was a good thing it was only you lot in here," he said. "Humans have this thing about churches- they believe they're safe, so they are. Probably why he chose this place. But your daughter felt me outside, and invited me in- so I could come in."

Jenny nodded weakly. "Can we just… sit down for a moment…?"

They lay her down a few yards away from the pool of blood where she had been stabbed. "You'll be fine," the Doctor said, "It's just blood loss, looks like. Regenerative energy should tale care of that in a few hours. Drink plenty of fluids."

Jenny laughed, and the Doctor laughed too. She looked up, past the Doctor and Asiman, and her smile widened. "Hey."

"Hey kiddo. See you didn't need us here after all." Jack Harkness prodded Gabriel's corpse with his boot. "Still, thought we'd show up. You know, put an appearance in."

Martha Jones peered out from behind him. "Oh my God, you've been _stabbed_!" She bustled over and bent to examine the wound. "It goes right through- we need to disinfect that right away. I don't have any bandages-"

"Martha, leave it."

"We can't just _leave_ it, you're daughter's been stabbed. With a sword!"

"Trust me. It's fine!"

"But-"

Jenny laughed again "Martha, really, I'm fine. Time Lord, remember?"

Jack, meanwhile, was eyeing Asiman suspiciously. "What's he doing here?"

The vampire hung his head. "Revenge. I know it seems petty, but it's all I have left. My family- He'd done something to them. Their minds were closed to me."

Jack lay a hand on his shoulder and smiled. "You know, we found that little baby that went missing. Elizabeth, I think."

Asiman looked up. "You mean… my daughter? Is she alive?"

"She's fine. Sarah, Gwen, and Mickey are looking after her."

The Malsangurian wrapped Captain Jack Harkness in a bear hug. "Thank you, Captain. I thought- I thought she was dead. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Hey, hey easy! Much as I enjoy this…"

Asiman stopped fairly quickly.

"But we still don't know who he was," Martha said. "Why he did this, or even _how?_"

The Doctor did not answer, but stared in silence at the corpse on the floor. One of the hands had begun twitching spasmodically.

"Doctor…?"

He raised a hand, asking for silence. "Just wait."

The hand's paroxysms intensified. It soon became apparent that it was tapping out a rhythm against the rock.

_Tap-tap tap-tap. Tap-tap tap-tap_

Jack spun, drew his handgun, and fired three rounds into the corpse, now convulsing wildly.

Martha's eyes were wide in horrified disbelief. "It can't be. It just _can't _be. I _saw him die_."

"What?" Jenny asked. "What's happening?"

Asiman and the Doctor remained silent, and stared- one horrified, and the other with grim knowledge.

Eyes clenched shut in pain, the man drew a great whooping breath and hauled himself to his feet. He fell over immediately. Hand on one of the wooden pews this time, he pulled himself up again, leaning on it for support.

He smiled jovially at the Doctor, and then bent forward and dry-heaved for a few minutes. Droplets of blood that glowed oddly fell from his mouth.

"Whoo boy," he laughed, "This is gonna be a rough one."

Jack shot him again.

"Ow. Hey…!"

"It won't do any good," the Doctor said coldly.

"But it's impossible," Martha maintained. "It's just not possible. _How_?"

Before anybody could do anything, before anybody could stop him, Asiman charged the man. With a visible outpouring of energy that looked like molten gold, the man zipped forward, wrapped a hand around the vampire's neck, and lifted Asiman bodily off the ground.

"You… Ruined… It!" He hissed, "I had… everything planned out, and…. You… Ruined… It!"

"B-but…" Asiman stammered in disbelief. "You're dead. You have to be dead!"

"Not for long! And… now… you pay for messing everything up…"

"Put him down," the Doctor ordered.

He was ignored. The man clenched his eyes shut in pain, and when he opened them again, they were glowing a bright orange. He looked at the writhing vampire quizzically for a second, and then smiled happily. "Hm," he said, "I didn't even think of that. How convenient."

Asiman's hands clawed at the fist tightening around his throat, but he was unable to tear his eyes away from the glowing darkness looking right back at him. For a split second, he knew how Lilith must have felt.

"What are you?" he choked out.

The lips once again twisted themselves into that horrible grin that was now all too familiar.

"I am the Master."

And then he exploded into a maelstrom of fire and light.

* * *

Okay, I recieved a variety of comments on possible identities for our antagonist here, several of which mentioned the Master.

But seriously you guys- who else was it gonna be?

I'm not going to invent a villain equal to the Doctor. So give me an example of a canon character who's an insane childlike genius with a personal vendetta against the Doctor and a penchant for elaborate schemes and ridiculous disguises that are only ever revealed at the last minute. For pretty much a canon example of everything that happened in this chapter, go to: .com/watch?v=tQwYpezshCE and/or .com/watch?v=tYbgT-1T1-c. Imagine this chapter as that but with higher production values. If you have never seen any of those actors before, then you are not a fan of Doctor Who.

Now then, it seems that there is still more story left to tell here. The villain's been unmasked, yes, but you can never really count this guy out. Another chapter and then maybe an epilogue. If you're wondering just how the hell I think I can get away with resurrecting the Master from the dead (He is, however, one of three characters that just _will not die_), then wait until the next chapter to start yelling at me about it.

Let me know what you think of this development by reviewing, of course.


	13. Chapter 13

Holy shit, did this take me a while. I think you lot deserve some kind of an explanation, and, well, the simple truth of it is that writing I get paid for takes precedence over writing I do not get paid for. Over the past few months, I have become increasingly involved with the Tarragon Theatre Company as they have purchased and are producing a short play (one hour) which I wrote and submitted to them. To any young Canadian authors out there- this is a company which is dedicated to promoting the work and talent of Canadian writers under 30, and if you're looking for an opportunity, this is a great chance to get your foot in the door.

So, once again, I apologize for the delay, and any further delay to those who follow my work in the future.

Now then, on to the story.

* * *

13

I Win

* * *

_You see, Doctor, you're my intellectual equal. Almost. I have too few worthy opponents. When they've gone I always miss them._

_- The Master_

* * *

_The dying vampire on the floor looked up at him with eyes filled with time and space itself. Lilith was burning up, her human body unable to contain the vast amounts of energy and knowledge within her. The people clustered around her are speaking, but she cannot hear them._

"_I can hear my heartbeat," she complains. "It's like thunder in my ears."_

_The Doctor says something, but it is drowned out as this body- stolen from a waitress at a restaurant mere weeks ago- runs through its cycles faster and faster._

_Thud… Thud. Thud… Thud. Thud… Thud._

_Was this why he heard it too? No, it was a different reason. "Him, too," she whispers, "So much noise… his heartbeat… The sound of it overwhelms his mind and dominates his thoughts…"_

_It was a faster beat. Frantic, even. Like drums inside his mind._

_Thud-Thud, Thud-Thud. Thud-Thud, Thud-Thud._

_Sometimes his heartbeat was all he could hear, and behind it… behind it was the whispering of the universe, the swirling of that terrible vortex._

* * *

_The Master of All looked down upon his kingdom from on high._

_His own face carved into Mount Rushmore, stone effigies testament to his dominance, the entire world remade in his image._

_And yet… there was an aspect of uncertainty. There always was, when he was involved._

_The Master turned to look at the old man, who glared back at him with hate-filled eyes… or was it really hate that he saw in them? No. He wished that he could see hatred behind those eyes, but the two knew each other too well._

_Behind his withered face and stoic façade, the Doctor was laughing at him. _

_

* * *

_

It was a mystery, alright.

_But it was a good one._

_An abandoned library, sealed away for a century. Instructions for a meeting scrawled on psychic paper. A cryptic message, 'stay out of the shadows.' And the last broadcast from the planet before it was sealed: '4022 people saved. No survivors.'_

_The Doctor smiled and set course for the Library. The feeling persisted that this was going to be a good one._

_

* * *

_

Time and space whirled towards destruction around him.

_The Master hurried through the once-immaculate corridors, now strewn with rubble and debris. Almost everybody is gone now, and when he gets to the TARDIS materialization hall, there are only three left. He tries the doors on the first two in vain, and then sees a Time Lord in tattered ceremonial robes follow him into the hall._

"_Is that yours?" the Master asks, pointing to the last of the three time machines. "I need your help."_

_The Time Lord is clutching a key in one hand. "I'm sorry," he says, "I can't take you anywhere. I have message for the War Council, it's an emergency, I have to go right awa-"_

_He is cut off as the Master crosses the distance between them in three quick steps, slips a dagger out of his coat, and stabs him several times in quick succession. They are pinpoint strikes, targeting first the three organs used in storing and processing regenerative energy, and then the two hearts._

_He snatches the TARDIS key from the dying man's hand and leaps aside as regenerative energy explodes from within- without the organs to manage the reaction, the hapless Time Lord will burn to a cinder._

_The Master does not spare him a second glance. He hurries into the TARDIS, and colourful fish swim by his head- the ship is decorated with the 'Deep Sea Blues' desktop. He begins throwing open drawers and rifling through cabinets, searching desperately._

"_Come on, come on," he breathes desperately, "where is it…?"_

_At last he finds a secret compartment hidden behind faux-coral panelling. He tosses away several bottles of wine, books banned on a variety of planets, and vials of Black Orpheus- a dangerously potent hallucinogen used occasionally as a painkiller but more often as a recreational drug._

_Underneath the pile of contraband is a small black box. The Master tears the lid off to reveal what he had been searching for- a small silver fob watch, entirely unremarkable in every way._

* * *

"_If I can't have this world, Doctor… then neither can you."_

_The ground trembles beneath them. The sky is the purest white._

"_We shall stand upon this Earth, together, as it burns."_

_He clutches the remote in his hand, and his thumb wavers over the button that will kill them all. Not just him and the Doctor, but… Lucy, too._

_The Doctor stares him down for a moment. Both of them know he is bluffing-and the Doctor invokes this knowledge, stating the blunt truth that is both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness._

"_Weapon after weapon after weapon," he says evenly. Like a game of Ri, both of them can see the impending conclusion from a mile off. "All you do is talk and talk and talk. But after all these years, and all these disasters, I've always had the greatest secret of them all… I know you. Explode those ships, you kill yourself. That's the one thing you can never do."_

_As it happens, he proves the Doctor wrong a mere ten minutes later. And a few days after that, he proves him exactly right._

_

* * *

_

He takes one last look at his face.

_He always liked it, but it will have to go. Too risky. He just might be recognized (he is quite infamous by now)._

_The goatee will have to go, too. He doesn't know who he might run into during his escape, and if it's the Doctor or that damned Romana, they certainly would be suspicious enough of him to inquire a little bit further as to just who he is. They always were too damned perceptive._

_The Master closes his eyes, and concentrates. He feels the energy flowing through his body- but it is calm; controlled. He bends it and shapes it to his will, and golden fire flows forth and reshapes mind, body and soul._

_When he opens his eyes, a blond young man with piercing blue eyes is staring back at him._

_He sees that the smile is still the same._

_

* * *

_

Tap-Tap, Tap-Tap. Tap-Tap, Tap-Tap.

_He's laughing on the inside. They both are._

_It is four in the morning._

_The Master sits and drums his fingers on the table, and stares at the Doctor. The mockery of a man, withered and old and trapped in a birdcage, stares back at him._

"_What did you tell her?" he asks simply._

_The Doctor says nothing, but the corners of his lips twitch upward in a tiny smile. He knows that the Master is infuriated._

"_You think you've won, don't you? You haven't beaten me yet. You hear me? You haven't won yet!"_

_Neither of them think that it is particularly odd for the totalitarian ruler of Earth to be saying this to a wrinkled little man stuck in a birdcage. Neither of them find much of anything particularly odd anymore._

_The Master stands up and swoops angrily out of the room. He needs a plan. Just like in a game of Ri, he needs to be one step ahead. Always._

_He needs to find Lucy._

_

* * *

_

"Lady Romana. The Time Seal around Gallifrey is weakening- it won't last another hour. The planet is dying."

_The Time Lady and Council President looks at the empty space on the escape craft- there are at least fifty free cryogenic chambers, without Time Lords to occupy them. But she also sees the panicked faces of the crew and refugees desperate to escape the planet, now shuddering in its death throes._

_She clenches her teeth. Is nobody else coming? Are they all foolish enough to die for a world that has long since reasoned its way into redundancy? Is this meagre group to become the last of the Time Lords?_

_"Take off," she says, so quietly that she herself can barely hear it. "Let's get out of here."_

_"Madam President! There's one more!"_

_The takeoff is halted, briefly, and the door opened to allow the refugee inside. Romana can feel the energy boiling inside of him- whoever it is has just regenerated._

_"And you are?" she says._

_"Please," he begs, "Please let me come with you. There was a man in council robes- he was dying- he told me to come here- gave me this."_

_The man thrusts out his hand, which is clutching a silver fob watch. It is identical to the others, one for every Time Lord aboard the vessel. The Ark._

_

* * *

_

He is speaking aloud, talking to Donna as if he is genuinely asking her for help, but they both know that his mind is whirring far too fast for her to even hope of keeping up.

_Still, he talks, because he thinks better when he speaks aloud. _

_He is holding a sonic screwdriver in his hand. Her sonic screwdriver- no, his, given to her. He modifies each one uniquely, it is his trademark, and he has never given one to anybody else before. So why River Song?_

_Because he knew she would be coming here. To the Library. To him. And he also knew that future him would know what had happened to past him, but he was not future him, he was present him who was currently desperately trying to work out the devilishly complicated thought processes of future him, who had developed a plan for past him knowing that past him would know future him would have created said plan. In the future._

_Things always worked out this way. He could never resist playing these little mind games, even with himself. One day, it would likely be his undoing, but he did not care._

_And there it was. The Doctor slid a panel off of the side of the screwdriver, revealing a deceptively tiny hard drive, inside of which was contained something precious._

_Dimly he hears Donna asking, "What have you done?"_

_He smiles and says, "Saved her."_

_Come on now. One last run. You and me._

_

* * *

_

"Go on," he goads her, "Do it."

_But she is weak; she is just as pathetic as the rest of this barely sentient species, and Martha's mother lets the gun clatter out of her fingers and onto the tile floor. Almost immediately, the Doctor hurries to embrace her, comforting her in her time of anguish._

_How blasé._

_He is annoyed by the fact that she did not shoot him. It would have been much less suspicious than what is about to happen. His eyes flick over to Lucy, his faithful companion. Dear, sweet Lucy, and more importantly the little bit of himself he has left in her head. _

_They do not notice the oddly glazed look on her face when she kills him, or if they do, the mistake it merely for mental trauma. She (and that piece of himself within her mind) watches dispassionately as he breathes his last on the cold tile, holding in the regeneration that threatens to overwhelm him. _

_And now the Doctor is clutching him, pleading hopelessly for him to regenerate, to live, to not make him once again the last of the Time Lords. His pain is immensely satisfying to watch._

_The Master chooses his last words carefully._

_"How about that? I win."_

_

* * *

_

The Master- the new Master, with boyish good looks and piercing blue eyes- whistles as he works.

_He strolls alone through the empty corridors of the Ark, which drifts through space carrying the last of a once-great species. The Time Lords slumber silently in cryogenic chambers, each one naked and with a plain silver fob watch clutched in their frozen fingers._

_He is the only one still awake, the only one who has not yet given up his identity for the sake of the disguise._

_They are all fools, every last one of them. Except for maybe Romana._

_It had taken a clever bit of deception, and his life being put in serious jeopardy to trick Romana into believing that he had become human, but then again, deception was one of the things he was best at. And now, thanks to this deception, he stood on the brink of becoming the single most powerful being in the Universe._

_The Ark drifted on a set course. The autopilot was under instructions to drift in the dark space between galaxies for ten million years, before finding and landing on a habitable planet and reviving the slumbering Time Lords._

_The Master smiled grimly. Can't have that._

_

* * *

_

It is an interesting feeling, being downloaded. An entirely unique sensation. It is almost like you are a mass of water that is being poured from one container into another. In this case, the two containers are a microchip hidden inside the ring formerly belonging to Harold Saxon, and the brain of his wife Lucy.

_Today is a day of firsts. It is not only the first time he has ever been downloaded, but it is also the first time he has ever been female._

_It won't do, however. He must do two things- hide his Time Lord identity from the Doctor, and give himself a face that won't be recognized. To do that, he will first have to regenerate, and then alter his body enough that he is no longer physiologically identifiable as a Time Lord. It is doable, although extremely dangerous. Not that he has ever had a problem risking his life- he is immortal, of course, as nothing that he or anybody else can do seems to kill him._

_He looks down at the ring on his finger (He still thinks of himself as male, although the hand the ring is on looks quite female, and the body attached to it most definitely is). He has quite literally saved himself from death._

_The Master finds this infinitely funny._

* * *

He screams at the center of the storm, as light and color, fire and ice, and time and space bend themselves around, into, and through him.

This is the most pain he has ever experienced. The body that he has built for himself is literally disintegrating and reforming, and still he struggles to keep hold. As always, his mind is flayed out during the process, a series of images and information rushing through his brain and he sees it all, even though he does not always want to.

The tissue in the arm that is holding Asiman is breaking down. The muscle decays, the bones weaken, and his arm almost buckles, but he keeps it aloft through sheer force of will. He cannot let go of the vampire. Not yet.

As the Master focuses what is left of his shattered mind on bending the energy that overwhelms him, the memories come again, faster and more disjointed this time.

_

* * *

_

Is the Doctor still alive? He wonders.

_The Master pilots the Ark- now devoid of its cargo- to the Silver Devastation, where he intends to be found. _

_Probably, he thinks. Almost definitely. The Master can imagine Daleks getting the best of the Doctor just as much as he can imagine Sontaran war protests. He has always firmly believed that there were three true immortals in this universe; and two of those are himself and the Doctor._

_The ship cycles through its landing sequence, and the Master opens the silver fob watch for what he hopes will not be the last time. He will pour himself into it, and create a fabrication to take his place._

_Part of him knows who will be the one to awaken him._

_

* * *

_

Pain.

_His existence is nothing but pain, anymore. The patchwork mockery of life that constitutes his current body simply cannot sustain itself any longer, especially at the rate at which he continues to drive it._

_He is gambling with the Universe yet again, and as always, the stakes are his life._

_Every day the barely contained regeneration grows stronger within him, and every day he fights harder to restrain it. The spastic fits wrack his body with greater and greater frequency as his internal processes break down, and the laws of nature catch up to him. It is nothing short of a miracle that he has managed to outrun them for this long, but then again, miracles are another thing he excels at._

_

* * *

_

He is not staring into her eyes, but past them. Into the mind beyond them, and into the identity beyond that.

_Dimly, he is aware that Jenny is extremely beautiful, and that his hand is currently fondling her right breast. His mind loosely makes the connection that the heart he can feel beating underneath his palm means that she is one of the last members of his species._

_He barely hears himself tell the lies that will get the vampires out of the room. His own heartbeat accelerates- not the one in his body but the one in his head. He has cut out his second heart as a part of his disguise, but the tattoo that thuds in his head is the ever-familiar drumbeat that has haunted him for so very long._

_

* * *

_

He gets only one chance to look in a mirror before he dies.

_The Master (formerly Professor Yana) even makes a point of doing so quickly, despite everything else that is going on around him. As he careens about the room flicking switches and tearing wires, destroying everything that his human self devoted his life to, he makes a point of glancing quickly into the small shaving mirror propped up on one of the desks._

_The boyish good looks are gone, replaced by kindly old wrinkles. The piercing blue eyes are the same, but there is a merriment there that even his new awareness could not completely diminish. The blond hair has turned gray, the muscle has weakened, the smooth speech has a tinge of old age about it._

_He is glad when he is shot moments later, even if it was only an insect and a woman that did it. He is delighted to be out of that wretched Professor's body._

_It had this intolerable aura of humanity all over it._

_

* * *

_

Lilith thrashed and screamed underneath him, but she did not blink and she did not look away.

_Thousands of years of experience poured into her brain, nearly infinite volumes of knowledge flooded her consciousness. The exchange worked both ways, and the Master was able to see all the vampire's thoughts and memories just as easily as she was able to see his._

_He had a bit more respect for Asiman and Lilith than he did for anyone else on this backwater planet; the vampires had lived for centuries themselves, and the amount of knowledge he had gleaned from Lilith would have been enough to fry the brain of an average human being._

_It never even fazed him, though._

_He could see the unspoken question in her eyes, not only that, he could hear it as her last thoughts swam through his cluttered mind. Despite what he was pouring into her, despite the nearly infinite amounts of knowledge she had just seen- she still could not grasp exactly what sort of terror he might be._

_Leaning down, he obliged her._

_"I am the Master. And you will obey me."_

* * *

Glass shattered, wood splintered, and stone tile was torn up and thrown into the air. Crackling beams of energy swirled and crackled, and the air was rife with the smell of blood, ozone, and something else that hinted at the incomprehensible power that was being unleashed.

The Master stood screaming at the center of this cataclysm, his arm thrust high into the air and still gripping Asiman like some grim trophy. The regeneration energy that surged from his body was forcibly rerouted and channelled into the writhing vampire, whose shrieks of agony soon surpassed even the Master.

"Asiman!" Jenny lunged forward, and was surprised when she moved quickly and fluidly- even faster than she could before she had been stabbed. "Let him go!"

With the same unearthly speed, her father was in front of her, holding her back. She noticed when he did so that his skin was glowing, and looking down she could see that hers was too. The hole in her chest was gone, healed by the simple fact of being so near to such a powerful regeneration.

"It's too late for him!" the Doctor shouted over the din. "The Master's altered his own body so much that the regeneration's become unstable. I've never seen one this severe. He's trying to save his own life by rerouting the energy into any nearby receptacle. That includes us!" He held up his glowing hand to demonstrate.

The church was being torn apart. Jack had dived on top of Martha to shield her from the flying debris and Gabriel- no, the Master, she reminded herself- destroyed more and more of the aged structure. Glass superheated and exploded, stone chips melted, wood caught fire. Jenny soon found that the energy filling her body became unpleasant and difficult to contain. The best analogy she could think of was feeling nauseous and trying not to vomit, although that seemed like a rather base comparison for such a sacred phenomena.

At last Asiman's screams petered out, and the Master's arm spasmed and flung the shattered corpse aside. He now stood, spread-eagled, as the sound and light and energy reached a crescendo. Jack and Martha squeezed their eyes shut and turned their heads away, overwhelmed, but first the Doctor and then Jenny stepped closer, observing with cold detachment.

The three Time Lords stood across from each other, and for one brief second there was a moment when their minds connected and all three were as one. Then the flare of energy receded, the light dimmed, and the chaos subsided, and the Master collapsed in a heap on the ground.

Wordlessly, the Doctor strode over to him and rolled him over. When he did so, Jenny was able to get a good look at his face.

It was the same. Exactly the same. The sharp, angular features, the dishevelled black hair, the same cruel expression staring back at her.

"How have you done this?" The Doctor demanded.

The Master laughed wildly. "Doctor, Doctor, Doctor… ooh, same old voice. Nice. I liked this one." He raised a shaky hand to feel out the unchanged features. "Same here, too. I can not believe that worked."

"What is it, what's happened?" Martha asked. She and Jack peered over Jenny's shoulder at the unchanged Master. "Oh my God. But… that's impossible. He regenerated. He's supposed to change…"

"No. No, it's not impossible." Jack was looking at the Doctor oddly. "You've done it before. Isn't that right, Doctor?"

And now the Doctor was looking across the torn stone floor at the spot where Asiman's corpse had landed. "A matching bioreceptacle…"

"Six pints of my own blood," the Master chirped out happily, still lying on the floor. "Standing right there in front of me. Isn't that just fantastic? I hadn't even planned for that, but then he goes right ahead and gives me the opportunity. Isn't that great? Isn't it?"

Jenny felt that this was a far cry from being either great or fantastic.

The Doctor's voice was cold. "Right. Jack. You drove here?"

"Yeah."

"Jenny and I will hold him. You watch him, and watch out for us. Remember, your gun can't hurt him but it can at least slow him down. Martha, you drive. We need to go, now."

"But what about…?" Martha looked back at What was left of Asiman, her question unvoiced.

The Doctor stopped for a moment, and looked at what was left of one of the most ancient and respected vampire clans in the Universe. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The five of them left the smoldering ruins of the church, Martha leading, Jack following, and Jenny and the Doctor dragging the Master along with them. His feet barely touched the ground from the time they picked him up until the time they threw him into the backseat of the car.

Jack turned around in the backseat and all but shoved the barrel of his handgun down the Master's throat. The only reaction he elicited was a leery giggle.

"That won't even hurt, you know. I regenerated five minutes ago. There's enough residual energy in me to jumpstart a starship and then shoot it back down again."

"It'll make me feel a hell of a lot better," Jack countered.

Jenny looked around at everybody in the car. She noticed that Jack was staring at the Master with a hatred she had never seen before, and that Martha's hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles had turned white. Her own father was looking at the man with a myriad of emotions, which surprised her- the Master had nearly killed the both of them, and had all but destroyed the city of London, and yet there was no mistaking a part of her father was glad that this man was alive.

"I don't understand," Jenny said. "This man is a Time Lord. I thought that we were the last ones? Have you met him before?"

The Doctor was quiet for a moment before continuing. "Well, I think it's time that my old friend here does some explaining. The last time I saw him, he had committed suicide purely to spite me."

"Was murdered." The Master corrected with a grin.

"You hypnotized her into shooting you. I should have realized it. And you managed to bring yourself back to life… how?"

He was genuinely enjoyed to explain just how he had outwitted the Doctor. "I saved myself. Downloaded my entire consciousness into a tiny hard drive I had built myself and hid inside of a ring. As soon as someone puts the ring on… I'm back." He laughed hoarsely again. Jenny was amazed at how he looked, sounded, and acted exactly like the man named Gabriel, but was somehow… different. She struggled to put her finger on it.

"Hey, Martha, how's the family?"

Martha remained quiet, but if Jenny looked closely she could see her shaking with barely suppressed rage.

"And how's work, Jack? Team's coming along fine, I suppose. I heard that Ianto had a nasty accident, though, how'd that work out for him?"

Jack controlled his emotions with a bit more finesse, but Jenny noticed how his gaze hardened and his eyes flicked over to the Doctor, as if searching for permission to shoot him.

The Master tried again. "Did I ever tell you what happened to the other Time Lords, Jenny?"

Her father looked up briefly. "They died," he said quietly.

Once again, Jenny was struck with that odd twinge that Gabriel and the Master were two different entities, somehow. She wondered if the regeneration had had anything to do with it.

"And how did that happen, Doctor?"

"I did it." Try as she might, Jenny couldn't read her father's emotions at all. "In order to put and end to… to everything. I did it, and I carry that responsibility."

The Master shook his head quietly. "One hour before the Time Shield around Gallifrey was destroyed, a Time Lord ship escaped the Dalek barricade around the planet."

The Doctor stared pensively, but did not say anything.

"On board the ship were nineteen Time Lords, including myself and the President of the Gallifrey High Council, Lady Romanadvoratrelundar."

This time, Jenny couldn't help but notice her father's emotions. His grip on Gabriel's arm tightened considerably, his eyes widened, and his skin went pale.

"The plan was for them to use the Chameleon Arch technology developed by the High Council, contained within a device disguised to appear as a simple fob watch. The device would reprogram a Time Lord's biology, so as to escape the bioscans that the Daleks would use to hunt down any remaining members of the species. I stole one of the watches. I allowed myself to become human."

Martha pulled the car over, and then turned around in her seat. Jack gritted his teeth, and tightened his grip on the gun he was holding. Jenny held her breath. The Doctor simply sat there quietly, staring at the floor of the car.

As he spoke, the Master's hands began tapping against each other in a simple rhythm. The strange sensation of _knowing_ that Jenny felt when she looked at him became stronger.

"I altered the device, of course. When they performed the procedure on me, I was able to retain my mind, if not my body. The full consciousness of a Time Lord, trapped in a human body… the strain of it nearly killed me. I waited until the other Time Lords had changed themselves and fallen into a cryogenic hibernation."

"What did you do to them?" Martha asked.

He smirked. "Hid them. Throughout time and space, I scattered the last remaining Time Lords, disguised as nothing more than human beings and with no memory of themselves."

Jenny could see where this was going a mile away.

"After that, I transformed myself into a human for real. I stayed, forgotten, at the very end of time itself… until you three showed up." With this, he gestured at Jack, Martha, and the Doctor.

The car was very quiet. Everybody seemed to be processing this new revelation.

"You aren't the last!" Jack said excitedly. "Doctor, if he isn't lying-"

"He isn't," her father replied flatly. No one questioned him.

"There are other Time Lords out there, Doctor!" Martha was smiling. "Others who escaped your planet! Isn't this good?"

The Doctor smiled weakly, and gave a weak motion of his head that was half nod, half shake. "It… I don't know… Don't you see?"

_No they don't_, Jenny thought. She couldn't really blame them- they thought the game was over, but the three Time Lords sitting in the back of this nondescript black car on a dirty London street. The few citizens still outside had no idea that the fate of the Universe itself could very well be determined right here, right now.

"I'm glad. There are others… and I'm glad." The Doctor now turned his head to look at the Master, who stared back emotionlessly. "But you're involved. And when you're involved, there are always games to be played, aren't there?"

The game had been a ruse, all along. The outcome of the charade the two had been playing had never been in doubt; from the very beginning the Master had been aware that this would be the end of it. He had simply been stringing the Doctor along, knowing the whole time that he could play this last card and the Doctor would be helpless.

It was just then that Jenny figured out why The Master was somehow different than Gabriel, and just what the strange feeling in the back of her head she felt when she looked at him was. The Master was a Time Lord, just like her and her father, and that alone meant that there was an inseparable bond that tied the three together.

The Master smiled silkily. "I know where the Time Lords are. And if you want to find them… you'll just have to listen to what I tell you."

He chose his next words carefully: "How about that? I win."

* * *

Um. This isn't the end. Just to let you know. Epilogue still to come.

I'm not going to lie, the genesis of this entire story came about when I began thinking just how the Master might return. Of course, he would never just show up and say 'I am the Master," he'd go and pull some inanely complicated stunt like this. And then I got to thinking, well, Jenny's still out there, isn't she? Better toss her in there. And Torchwood. And Sarah Jane. And some vampires (legit ones, none of that pansy-ass Twilight bullshit here, no sir). And before I knew it, I had a story in my head that I just felt like writing down.

Now, there is a definite avenue in my mind for continuation of this, although I'm not too sure where this will go beyond the next chapter. I will continue to update, but don't expect anything much for a little while. I may get some other work done in the meantime, though, while I'm thinking stuff up.

Anyways, I want to throw out a special thanks to two reviewers, Otter Child and Ginger Glinda the Tangerine, who have been following this story from the very beginning and offering excellent input. This, of course, means that they have been far more patient than I would have been with my slow-ass self. Thank you to everybody who reviewed; if you've ever written anything you know how valuable an intelligent opinion can be.


	14. Chapter 14

This chapter's a bit _avant-garde_ when compared to the previous pace of this story, as it's a transition. I initially meant to end it at some point after the revelation of the Master's identity, but the ideas I've been getting for continuations of this plot are good enough to warrant more, I feel. This is a transition between the first part of this story and the next.

* * *

14

Leverage

* * *

_Once a very long time ago, longer ago than you or I can remember or even imagine, there were two children who were the best of friends._

_One of them was Fire And Ice. The other one was Shadow And Light._

_The two loved nothing more than to play games, to test their skill against the other's. They played Ri and Chainball and Watch Me. They raced each other, they wrestled, they fought. They made games out of who could do the most push-ups, who could name the most constellations in the sky, who could read books the fastest. Everything was a competition between the two, and yet Fire And Ice and Shadow And Light remained the best of friends._

_As they grew older, they found that the old games bothered them. So they invented new ones. Fire And Ice would build tiny villages in the sand and populate them with tiny sand villagers, Shadow And Light would build tiny sand armies and try to raze the village. One would build elaborate puzzles, games within riddles within games, and the other would solve them. One would create great stars and suns and moons in the sky, and the other would blot them out or burn them up or tear them down._

_The two grew older still, and as they did so they drifted apart, as all friends do. The elders looked down on their brilliance, wasted on such childish competitiveness, and they were given responsibilities, great responsibilities, and they no longer had time for games. They drifted apart, and many many years passed without one seeing the other._

_Then one day, they both tired of the drudgery of life forced upon them by their society, and escaped. Both at the same time, and yet independent from each other. They cast off their responsibilities, and fled, meeting each other in the void outside reality._

_"What shall we do?" Fire And Ice asked. "There is nothing here, in the void. No games for us to play."_

_"Then we shall create one," said Shadow and Light. "We shall create the greatest game of all, and it shall be an eternal competition between you and I."_

_And so the two threw bright stars and suns and moons across the blackness, and they created the Universe._

_"You will be a force for order and righteousness in this Universe," said Shadow And Light, "And I will be a force for chaos and discord. What you create, I will destroy. And we will compete this way for as long as we like."_

_"We can create and destroy worlds at a glance," Fire and Ice replied. "How is it that this one reality will suffice for the both of us?"_

_"That's easy," his friend responded. "We shall take on physical forms ourselves, and play this game as inhabitants of this existence. We will fight across the stars, and it will be glorious."_

_And so the two, now and forever the best of friends, went off into the Universe they had created._

_That is what this reality really is; that is all that it is. Just a game between two old friends._

_- Ancient folk tale. Origins unknown._

* * *

Doctor Tom Milligan by no means considered himself to be in any way special, or unique, or destined for greatness.

Of course, he knew that he made a positive difference in his work as a paediatrician, and even more so in his work overseas in third-world countries in Africa or Asia, but those were small differences, changing the course of maybe a few lives. And he was satisfied that he was able to do that. No, more than satisfied- he was proud.

He had never believed in those people who change the fate of the entire world with their actions, who save or damn all of humanity with a single choice. He supposed he should actually think in terms of the Universe now, he realized, as more than enough evidence of extraterrestrial life had been presented to Earth in the past few years.

But as for tales about heroes and villains who carried the world on their shoulders- he dismissed them as just that. Tales. The real difference was made by people who worked their hardest at changing on little bit at a time, be it one life, one place, or one event. Normal people, just doing the best they could. People like him and his fiancée Martha Jones.

Of course, all this was before he showed up at her apartment one day to find her in the middle of a very loud and very strange argument with her mother.

"You don't have to do this!" Francine yelled, tears in her eyes. "You don't owe him anything!"

"But I do, mum!" Martha insisted. There were two suitcases at the front door, and Martha was throwing clothing into them just as fast as her mother was taking them out. "I owe him my life. Countless times over. And so do you. And so does everybody else on this planet!"

"So what!?" Francine screamed. "You're not _obliged_ to go and risk your life for him! I doubt he even wants you to!"

The whole thing seemed very surreal to Tom. For a few moments, he even wondered if they were talking about him.

"Of course he doesn't!" Martha screamed back. "That's why I have to go. Because otherwise he'll end up doing this alone!"

"Then let him!"

"I think I am _obliged_ to do a little more than let him do this by himself. The Doctor's done so much for us; for me- and now I have the chance to do something for him. Please, mum. Can't you understand?"

For a good few seconds the two of them just stood there, Martha with an armful of sweaters and jackets ready to be put into the suitcase, and Francine with an armful of her daughter's underwear that she had just pulled out of it. And then Francine's arms shook, and she dropped the clothing and sank to her knees sobbing.

"M-Martha…" she heaved, tears running down her face, "He'll kill you. I know he will. H-he almost did it once before. You- you'll go with them, and something will go wrong, and- and he'll kill all of you. Oh God, Martha, please just stay as far away from him as you can. Please, please, Oh God…"

And now it was Martha's turn to drop the bundle of clothes she was carrying and sink to her knees, as she put her arms around her mother. She did not cry, however, and her voice remained firm.

"I can't do that, mum. It's not about me. It's not even about this planet, not really. I need to go, because… I don't think the Doctor really sees the danger he's put himself in. He can't see past this one chance he has to belong again, and… and he needs us to be there for him. He's saved all of us and now it's my turn to save him."

Francine clutched her daughter desperately, as if she would never see Martha again. "Martha, aren't you- aren't you _scared_?"

"Terrified."

It was at this point that Tom Milligan's wit overcame his mute confusion, and he eloquently placed his questions as to the precise nature and circumstance of the dispute into speech:

"What the hell is going on?"

Martha did not look at him, and this worried him somehow. "I… I need to go away for a while Tom."

"What? Where? And for how long…?"

She picked up the clothing she and her mother had dropped and began placing it in the suitcase. "Tom, I… Oh, God, this is going to sound ridiculous isn't it? Tom, I honestly have no idea where, and… I don't know how long. I'm sorry."

He frowned. This was very unlike her. "Martha… has something happened?"

She stopped at this, hands frozen in place. Francine burst into tears again.

"Tom…" she said. "Help me pack these suitcases, please."

"Tell me where you're going!" he demanded.

"Help me pack," she repeated. "And then you can see me off. How's that sound?"

"Martha. Tell me what's going on. Now."

She thought for a moment, and then sighed. "Once we get these in the car, I'll tell you. There's something you need to see, otherwise you won't understand."

It was early in the morning. Tom had been over to Martha's place to take her out for coffee before they went in to work; him in the hospital downtown and her… well, she had never really told him where she worked, only that it was in government and that it was classified. He realized that whatever was going on now likely had something to do with that, but he recalled that Francine had acted very much like she knew what was going on, which meant that she had to be in on it too.

* * *

Martha parked the car in a lot outside of a warehouse on the Thames. Looking around, Tom saw that there was only one other car present- a matte black one that looked pretty beat-up. Besides the two of them, however, there was nobody in sight. The only thing out of the ordinary was the blue police call box that stood in the middle of the lot.

They stepped out of the cars and Tom retrieved Martha's bags from the trunk. He wondered if perhaps she would be going wherever it was via the river, but she headed straight for the blue box and, taking a deep breath, inserted a key into the lock.

She opened the door and stepped inside. When he simply stood in confusion, she poked her head back out. "Come in," she said.

"What are you talking about? There's no way the two of us will-"

"Just come in," she repeated.

Shrugging, Tom followed her inside the tiny blue box.

And promptly dropped the suitcases he was holding.

Inside the box was- The box was really- it opened onto some kind of chamber that was far too large to fit inside such a small structure. The walls glowed organically and coral-like growths arched from the floor to the ceiling. The center of the room seemed to be some sort of vastly complicated console, with levers and dials and buttons and screens and a hammer for hitting things that didn't work. Tom could see doors in the walls that led to more rooms inside the box.

The place was a bustle of activity. Suitcases, beer cans, firearms, and pizza boxes were strewn about, and people bustled back and forth in a worried scramble, tense expressions on their faces.

A thickset man in a World War II-era greatcoat was attempting to feed a baby girl he held in his arms, while at the same time shouting instructions to a dark-haired woman feverishly writing everything down and a black man sorting through several boxes of firearms and ammunition with a slice of pizza jammed in his mouth the whole time. An older redheaded woman was sorting through the many suitcases of clothing and grocery bags of food that lay about the floor. A blond girl was arguing feverishly with a tall, thin man with ridiculous hair wearing a brown coat in a language Tom had never heard before, as the tall man bounded around the central console twisting and adjusting and occasionally whacking with the hammer. Martha went straight to the man and began speaking to him quietly.

The only person there that didn't seem to be busy was sitting in fold-out chair in the middle of all the chaos. He had wild dark hair and darker eyes that stood out against pale skin, and he was wearing something that had once been a designer suit but had in the intervening period of time been nearly destroyed. When Tom looked closer, he noticed that the man's arms and legs were handcuffed to the chair he was sitting in.

"Doctor Tom Milligan! Martha's told me all about you! So here you are in person, then."

Tom turned to find the cheery man in the brown coat smiling and offering him his hand. Hesitantly, Tom took it and shook it.

"I always love to meet another Doctor. Just wanted to let you know I'm so happy for you and Martha, and I promise- I really promise- that I will bring her back to you safely."

"Who the hell are you?" Tom burst out- he'd had quite enough. "Listen. I think I've been quite patient, and it's about time someone told me just what in God's name is going on here!"

There was a bit of a silence. The tall man gave Martha a look that clearly said: _you haven't told him yet?_

It was of course at this time that the man tied to the chair broke the silence with maybe the most confusing sentence of all. "Hey! I remember you! I killed you that one time! How's it going?"

Martha bit her lip. "Tom," she said. "There's something you need to hear. It's… you might want to have a seat."

* * *

While Martha spoke to her fiancé, and her father continued to make fevered preparations, Jenny spent her time determinedly trying not to look at the Master. It was made all the more difficult by the fact that his eyes were following her wherever she went, and that she could feel his presence, along with that of her father, in the back of her mind.

Although his arms were tied down, his fingers still beat a tattoo against the chair's metal. It was the familiar four-beat rhythm of her own twin heartbeat.

"Jack," she said, desperate for something to take her away from the overwhelming tension between the three Time Lords. "Have you decided what you're going to do with her?"

Jack looked down at the infant vampire in his arms. "I talked with the Doctor. He figures that we can stop by Malsangur before we head out and hopefully find someone who will take her in. All her family on this planet is dead, and it's far too dangerous where we're going, so there's really not much choice."

"You could leave her here, on Earth," said Sarah Jane. She was looking past Jack, at the Master, with a look of intense dislike.

"Did you know him?" Jenny asked. "I mean… before?"

She shook her head. "No. I only met him once, and he was different, back then. And I don't just mean the regeneration, it's like… he's fading. His mind's more unstable than I remember it being. The only thing that's really the same about him is his obsession with the Doctor."

"It feels… weird," Jenny said after a while. "My whole life… well, I say my whole life, but it's really been only three years. Clone, you know. But for as long as I can remember, there's been this special connection I've had between me and my dad. I always thought that it was something intangible, that only the two of us shared. Something that couldn't be explained, or rationalized, or quantified…"

She sighed.

"And now I find out that it's not like that at all. Because this… this Master, whoever the hell he is… I look at him, and I feel the same connection. I can't help it. I want to hate him, but there's this mental link, and I just… I just _can't_. It burns me up inside to think that, just because we're the same species- he's every bit as important to me as my father is."

Sarah laid a hand on her shoulder. "No, Jenny, he's not. Because you _know_ your father cares for you. He loves you. He'd die for you, Jenny, just like he'd die for any one of us. That man there…" She struggled to find the words, and couldn't. "Jenny, no matter what happens, you can't ever forget that he's dangerous. As long as he's nearby, you're in more danger than you've ever been."

"I know," she said. "And- don't tell my dad this- I wish I could kill him. I really do, because I honestly think it would be for the best. But it's not just my dad or my ideals that are stopping me. When I look at him, I know that my mind would never let me do it."

"Well, for now that's quite enough talk of killing and danger," Sarah Jane sighed. "There's been enough of that lately, and I expect there'll be far too much more in the near future for you."

She turned to Jack and held out her arms. "May I hold her, Captain?"

Jack smiled forlornly and handed the baby Elizabeth to Sarah Jane. "Ma'am."

"Oh, when I was young I never though the day would come when men would call me that." Sarah rocked the child gently. "I could watch over her, if you like. For now, at least."

Jack held up his hands. "I- I wouldn't want to put you out."

She glanced back at the Master. "Please. It's the least I can do. And I have a feeling you'll have your hands full on this outing."

Jack sighed. "Tell me about it."

Sarah Jane's gaze shifted slightly towards the Doctor himself, who was working in stoic silence. "It's up to us now, to watch over him. I think that, because of what he's gone through, and what he _will_ go through… it'll be tough for him. And maybe now, we can all try and repay him for everything he's done for us."

Just then, Mickey jumped up from the array of weaponry spread out on the floor before him, rubbing his sore back and reaching for a can of Arcturus Ale. "There you go boss. Just about everything you'd need, all cleaned, loaded, and primed."

"Hell," Gwen breathed, looking over the collection. "Sure you've got enough?"

Jenny let herself admire the weapons, a bit of a guilty pleasure for her. There was enough there to not only start a war, but finish it as well: An antique-looking Colt revolver, a portable laser used for cutting metal, a squareness gun, a pair of heavy-calibre Sig Sauer handguns, bandoliers of smoke, incendiary, and fragmentation grenades, plastic explosive, road flares, an automatic sniper's rifle that technologically shouldn't have existed for another two hundred years, a machete, a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, brass knuckles, Bowie and Swiss Army knives, and a rapid-fire stutter laser.

"One of these guns must be Chekov's," Jenny attempted to be funny.

"Huh?" said Mickey, Jack, and Gwen.

"Never mind." Figured as much.

Jack clapped Mickey on the back heartily. "You've really pulled through for me this time, Mickey. Can't wait to blow something up."

"Ah, you know me. Man in the van. The Tin Dog," he replied winking at Sarah Jane, something that made no sense to Jenny at all.

Jack continued, addressing both Mickey and Gwen. "Now, I want you two to work with Sarah Jane while we're gone. Hold down the fort. If any trouble pops up that you can't handle, well… the Doctor's got my cell on Universal Roaming. Hopefully, it won't come to that."

"Sir." Gwen sprang to a sharp salute that was softened by her warm smile at the Captain. Mickey simply shook his hand solemnly.

"Oh, don't worry about us, Captain," Sarah Jane moved to join Mickey and Gwen. "I was doing this centuries before you were even born, you know."

"The world is in good hands," Gwen said, and Jenny believed her. "Now you just got to make sure you protect our Universe."

* * *

"Like a perfect little family, they are." Being tied to a chair had in no way whatsoever diminished the Master's vitriolic attitude. "Old Dad loads the kids up into his van- somehow manages to cram them all inside, you'd have no idea it was that big lookin' at it- and he throws all the luggage into the back, slams that baby into gear, and hi-ho it's off on another grand adventure on the open road."

"And what part do you play in that little metaphor?" The Doctor asked. To every non-Time Lord aboard, it seemed that he was intently focused on calibrating the TARDIS' main console. Only the three of them knew that he was actually fiddling uselessly, and making a very poor charade of doing otherwise. "Are you a part of that family?"

"Me?" The Master shook his head with dry amusement. "I'm that asshole in-law that you just can't get rid of."

The Doctor's patience was wearing thin, and the both of them knew it. He had been subject to enormous amounts of physical, mental, and emotional strain in an extremely short period of time, and it didn't seem likely that the pressure would let up in the near future. As the only one of them with information that the other needed, the Master had the clear upper hand, and it wouldn't be long until he pushed the Doctor into a mistake. The both of them knew that, too.

"Fancy a game of Ri?"

"I'm quite busy with this little game you insist on continuing to play, thank you."

"I see. Can't handle the strain, can you Doctor?"

The Doctor scowled. "Maybe later."

"Dad."

The two of them turned to find Jenny standing in front of them, eyes on her father's haggard face. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, Jenny, don't worry. Now, there's a lot to do before we leave, have you checked that we have milk? We always run out of milk- I can stop at the store and-"

"Get away from him, Dad."

The Doctor paused mid-sentence. He glanced back and forth between Jenny and the Master. "What do you mean?"

"This… guy." Jenny refused to call him by his name. "I'd like to talk to him for a moment. In private. And you talking to him and not getting any rest isn't doing you any good, either. He's got the information, he has the leverage, we all know that, so can we quit it with the games for now? You're being stubborn and he's being a prick."

There was a moment of silence, and then both the Doctor and the Master burst out laughing.

"Oho, this daughter of yours, Doctor! She knows how to play!"

"It seems she does," the Doctor said, much more warmly. "Talk all you want, Jenny, but keep in mind that when it comes right down to it, he's the one who's tied to a chair."

And he strolled away, not even acknowledging the Master's chirp of 'Kinky!' from behind him as he did so.

"So then," he turned to Jenny. "What would you like to talk about?"

"Who the hell are you? How do you know my dad? If you're a Time Lord, how are you still alive? What was Gallifrey like? How did it die?" She took a deep breath. "You have the answers to all of these questions, don't you?"

He chuckled. She definitely knew how to play the game. But she was forgetting that she was playing with two of the best. "Yes. I do."

"Information that I want. Leverage."

"That's right."

"The question is…" For a second, he wondered if maybe he had underestimated her. "What do you think that information is worth?"

A common, yet effective, technique. Forcing the other party to name a price almost always shoehorns them into a disadvantage. Almost always. Again, she was playing with the best.

"I want a TARDIS," he said. "Not necessarily this one. Any one will do. I know where, and when, one is- if you can get me there, I will tell you everything you need to know."

Jenny shook her head. "I don't think what you're offering quite matches the price. And I think you know that."

He remained silent.

"I'll talk to you later about that, I suppose. When you're in a bit more of a negotiating mood. Oh, and…"

She whirled and turned, jabbing him hard with the tips of her fingers in his chest, just below the ribcage. He fell forward coughing, remaining on the chair only by virtue of being bound to it.

"…You want to watch what you say or do to my father. 'Cause he's patient. Me, not so much. And don't forget that, mind games or no, a steel-plated combat boot in the throat hurts all the same."

The Master gasped for breath, watching her back as she walked calmly away. No, he most certainly would not forget about Jenny. Nor would he underestimate her. But perhaps she overestimated herself; parading brashly and with a lack of finesse that made it all too easy to see the weaknesses in her façade.

There was this trick that the best players pulled all the time, where they made you think you were winning only to reveal at the last second that they had been two steps ahead of you the whole way.

* * *

Tom was speechless. Actually speechless. He simply couldn't think of a response to any of what Martha had just explained to him.

Fortunately, he was spared from having to by the tall man in the brown coat who greeted them- the man Martha had referred to as 'the Doctor.'

"Hello, Martha, this must be… Tom, right?"

He nodded mutely, his hand seized and shook cheerfully. Shaking hands with an alien, who was apparently so absentminded as to have forgotten that he they had already been introduced, already shaken hands. Suddenly he wrenched his hand away, and then placed in on the man's chest. Felt the heartbeat underneath. Moved his hand to the other side, felt the beat there, too.

"Jesus." He muttered.

"Tom, I'm sorry I had to keep this from you," Martha said. "I just didn't know how to explain it…"

"And why now?" he asked. "What's so important now that you _need_ to tell me, that you need to leave?"

Neither Martha or the Doctor answered him right away. Instead the man bound to the chair shouted, "Hey, you! Over here!"

Tom ignored both Martha's and the Doctor's admonishments and walked over to where the man was seated. "Who the hell are you?" He was beyond patience now.

He grinned. "I'm the reason you're fiancée over there thinks that this little venture is important to tell you about. Because there's a very good chance she won't be coming back from this one."

"What do you mean? Who are you? Tell me!"

The man smiled. "Just look at me for a second."

"What-"

"The Year that Never Was. But temporal manipulation is never perfect- it leaves remnants. Evidence. And those memories are buried deep within your mind, and all it takes is the right key."

Tom was overcome with a horrible familiar feeling. Neither Martha or the Doctor attempted to interfere, and simply watched.

"Shh. Listen. Listen, Tom Milligan."

Tom listened.

"Can you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

"The drumming. Just behind everything. The drumming is the key."

The man- the Master's fingers tapped out a beat on the metal of the chair again, and Tom's own hand rapped out the same beat against his thigh. He was not doing so consciously, and yet he was aware of it.

"What is this…? It feels like I've…"

And then he remembered.

His very first reaction was to turn and run as far away from the Master as he could. His eyes scanned the inside of the TARDIS for something- anything- and he spotted the handguns that Mickey Smith had been calibrating earlier. Tom grabbed the Sig Sauer, slammed the chamber back, and pointed the gun at the Master's face.

Something kept him from firing, though. That memory of Martha, from that year that never happened, explaining that _Time Lords can regenerate their bodies. Literally bring themselves back to life._

"Remember something?" The Master said, and Tom hated him as he had never hated anyone ever before. Except in that time that never existed.

"You… Oh God… you killed me. I died because of you."

"Told you." The Master said it with some sort of mocking accent, so that it came out _Toadja._

"Tom," the Doctor said, and he sounded very tired. "Put the gun down."

He did, and then turned to the subject of a thousand legends that he actually remembered hearing, from the mouth of his fiancée. "You're the Doctor," he stated.

"I am."

"Martha trusts you." Another statement. "And I trust Martha." That was all he needed to say, although he wasn't at all happy to hear himself saying it.

* * *

And now he and Martha were standing outside the TARDIS, away from the monster that was tied to a chair, and they were whispering what very well could be their last words to each other.

"I remember that year," Tom said. "I remember everything you said about the Doctor. You… you said you loved him."

Martha's face flushed. "I did. I really did. But I could never have had him. And… now I don't want to. I have you."

"I died for you," Tom smirked, feeling oddly self-inflated.

"Don't you dare do it again," Martha admonished. She leaned forward, he leaned down, and their lips met. She tasted sweet.

"Promise me you'll come back," he said when they parted.

She didn't, but instead she said, "Time travel's a funny thing. I could only be gone for five minutes. Just think of it like that."

She turned and disappeared into the impossible machine, and Tom remembered that there had been legends told about her as well- _Martha Jones. That she alone could strike down the Master of All._

He felt suddenly inadequate next to these immortals that were whisking her away from him.

Mickey, Gwen, and Sarah Jane left the TARDIS and stood watching as its great engine whirred with the sound of the Universe itself, and it vanished into nothingness. They stayed a moment longer, and then piled into the plain black car and drove off.

_I could only be gone for five minutes_, she had said.

Tom waited for five minutes.

She did not reappear.

* * *

This chapter might seem unimportant at first glance, but I really do love the literary device which Jenny alludes to at one point here. I'll leave it at that.

Also, I just want to note that I really like the epigraph at the beginning of this chapter, so much so that I actually considered publishing it here as a separate, one-shot story.

Thank you for reading and reviewing, as always.


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